


For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her

by rosiesbar



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 1950s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Post-War, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 02:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3512252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiesbar/pseuds/rosiesbar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the spring of 1954. As Hawkeye struggles to readjust after returning to Crabapple Cove, he receives a letter that may turn his life around. The news takes him to San Francisco, and with BJ at his side, he goes in search of answers. But instead of the fresh start he dreams of, he and BJ uncover a dark, hidden world and begin to realise that they may have walked away from one war, but a thousand others are raging on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a love story.
> 
> I just wanted to clarify this detail early on, as I realise many readers may be put off by the presence of an Original Character in both the character listings and the title. However, this is not a romantic story in any way, so if you have arrived here expecting hearts and flowers, you may be disappointed. The purpose of this story is to tell an imaginative, realistic and hard-hitting tale focusing on a particular aspect of 1950s American culture that happens to be very close to my heart.
> 
> The historical details have been adapted, without a great deal of elaboration, from actual real-life accounts provided by people who lived through these experiences. I have written this not expecting the reader to be familiar with this aspect of history, and as such have tried to pen it as a voyage of discovery, told through the eyes of characters we know and love.
> 
> It also deals with topics some readers may find distressing. (No character death.)

**For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her**  
  
_What I dream I had, pressed in organdie,_  
_Clothed in crinoline of smoky burgundy,_  
_Softer than the rain._  
_I wandered empty streets down past the shop displays._  
_I heard cathedral bells tripping down the alley ways,_  
_As I walked on._

 _And when you ran to me your cheeks flushed with the night._  
_We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight._  
_I held your hand._  
_And when I awoke and felt you warm and near._  
_I kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears._  
_Oh I love you, girl._  
_Oh, I love you._

'For Emily Whenever I May Find Her'  
– by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

 

* * *

  ** _Mill Valley, California – April 1954_ **

"I gotta admit, this is a bolt out of the blue." BJ was beaming as he poured them each a drink and handed Hawkeye a fine, crystal glass. "I never thought I'd see you turning up on my doorstep with girl trouble!" He was still smiling expectantly as he returned the bottle to the drinks cabinet and took a seat.

The corner of Hawkeye's lip twitched into something that could generously be called a fraction of a smile. He took a long, reassuring drink. "Girl trouble – that's one way of putting it," he muttered, shifting a little awkwardly on Peg's floral print couch. Trust BJ to be able to meet even the most terrifying crisis with reassuring, unshakable good humour. Nothing seemed to faze the man. Hawkeye could only assume California grew optimism on trees the same way it did oranges. "Sorry to drop in like this. I bet you thought you left all the mayhem behind in Korea, didn't you?"

They were sitting in the plush suburban living room of the Hunnicutts' plush suburban house, BJ propped up in an easy chair with his long legs stretched out across the carpet, and Hawkeye slumped opposite him, elbows resting on his knees as he rolled his now-almost-empty glass between his fingers. Apart from their surroundings and the line of longitude they were sitting on, it seemed like nothing had changed.

Except everything _had_ changed, or was about to. Telling BJ had made it seem all the more real. The thoughts that had been tumbling through his mind like flurried images from a dream suddenly snapped into focus.

"Must be quite a special lady to get you flying all the way across the country. I'm guessing she made an impression."

BJ's comment shattered Hawkeye's thoughts and dragged him back to reality. Hawkeye swallowed. He took a large swig of gin, set his glass down, and sighed. "She sent me a letter." Reaching into the pocket of his slacks, Hawkeye produced a worn, grubby, folded piece of paper. It looked like it had once been lemon yellow, but weeks of handling reading and re-reading had rendered it a mottled grey. He extended it to BJ, but his friend shook his head and held up his hands.

"Hey, you keep your dirty letters to yourself – I'm a married man. Just… give me the gist."

In a rare moment of self-consciousness, Hawkeye glanced over his shoulder. Peg had busied herself about the house in a thinly disguised attempt to give them space to talk in private, and had clearly vanished upstairs.

BJ seemed to read his mind. "Peg can't hear you. She's got better things to do than eavesdrop on your love-life. Now quit stalling, would you? I'm on tenterhooks here!"

Nodding, Hawkeye unfolded the letter and cleared his throat. He had a feeling that BJ's grin was about to vanish. Without any further ceremony, he began:

 _"_ _Dear Hawkeye, How's Korea? I've been trying to write this letter for three hours now, and only managed those two little words. Pretty good going, right? But you know me, I was always the quiet type._

 _"_ _I guess I'll start with the small-talk: America is beautiful – even more beautiful than I remembered – but I'd be happy anywhere as long as there's no bombs, or shells, or cold showers in the mornings. I think of all of you every day and I hope you all get to come home soon too. There's news on the wireless that peace talks are making progress, so with any luck you won't have to wait long._

 _"_ _I'll never forget the party you threw for me the night before I flew home. I know it was you because nobody else in that camp knew how to make gin Jell-o. I'll also never forget that midnight walk we took up to the hill by the chopper pad, and down the other side again so we could lie in the grass and look at the stars. We only got two constellations in before…"_

Hawkeye trailed off for a moment, coughed and murmured, "I'll skip a bit." As he resumed, he found himself wavering in his recitation.

 _"_ _I hope it won't sound too corny if I tell you it was the most memorable night of my life. Not because I'm some lovesick little girl with her head in the clouds – I'm twenty-four, and I'm no fool – but because I'm expecting a baby in six months. I've spoken to my doctor to make sure. I wouldn't have written to you about this unless I was certain, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it's yours. Don't feel bad for me – I know circumstances are hardly ideal, but in a funny way I can't help but think this could be the one good thing to come out of Korea. And please, please don't be scared. If anyone should be scared it's me – I have to tell my folks next. I hope they understand."_

Hawkeye paused. His voice cracked and he inhaled a deep, tremoring breath.

 _"_ _I want you to know I'm not demanding anything from you. You didn't sign up for this, and I know that. I just wanted you to be aware, so you can make whatever decision you choose. I won't chase you, or even name you unless you want me to, but I'm sure you understand that I would dearly, dearly love to speak with you._

 _"_ _Yours, Emily (formerly Lt. Winters)."_

Hawkeye folded the letter along the well-worn lines and sat holding it awhile before looking up at BJ. They sat in silence for a minute or so, each unsure of what to say.

It was BJ who spoke first. "When did you get this?"

"Two months ago. She wrote it last summer. It must have come through while I was– uh..." He gave a little sideways nod, indicating his stay at the psychiatric hospital. "Looking at the stamps on the envelope I'd say this has been shipped to Uijeongbu, Seoul, Tokyo, back to Uijeongbu again, and then stopped for a vacation in some military sorting office before they finally managed to get it on a plane back to Crabapple Cove."

BJ's eyes widened as he did the math. "So that means…"

"The kid would have been born about four months ago." Hawkeye went cold. It was the first time he'd said the words out loud. He hadn't spoken of this until now. He couldn't tell his father, could barely even admit it to himself. He tried the idea on for size again. "I have a kid. There's a little part of me out there shaped like a tiny human being, keeping Emily awake at night, laughing, crying for a bottle, throwing up."

BJ quirked a smile. "The apple didn't fall far from the tree." Hawkeye shot him a look, and BJ took note that this was not a time for witty remarks, but he couldn't deny the idea of a tiny, miniature Hawkeye had some appeal to his paternal side. "Sorry – I get that this is a shock."

"No kidding!"

"I mean, I know what you were like out there. Are you seriously telling me this kind of thing never even occurred to you?"

"I was _careful_ , Beej." Hawkeye's tone was morose rather than indignant. "I'm a _doctor._ I might have laughed at those lousy movies they showed us but I wasn't stupid. I single-handedly kept Japanese rubber shares at the top of the stock market!" His mind wandered for a moment, recalling the embarrassed silence of the regulation VD checks, and the way the officers would subtly palm little bundles of army-issue prophylactics into the sweaty hands of terminally cringing enlisted men. Not to mention the way Potter would always call him back after and personally hand him however many were left over. Hawkeye was the poster boy for 'if you can't be good, be careful', doing his best to grin and joke and toss off a cheeky one liner about 'something for the weekend'. "I was the _epitome_ of careful," he muttered.

"Those things don't always work, Hawk."

"I noticed," Hawkeye replied softly. "Remind me to write a strongly worded letter to the army on the subject of their poor craftsmanship." He turned his attention back to the note in his hands, unfolding it, refolding it, and turning it over.

"Forget the army – you need to write back to her. You need to write back to her _now_."

"I did!"

"I mean, your kid's gonna be four months old by now."

"I wrote to her already!" Hawkeye ran his hand through his hair, agitated. Did BJ think he'd just ignored this? "It took me a week to get the words out. I must've started twenty or thirty letters and tossed 'em in the trash before I got it right. But I wrote. And I got nothing. So I wrote again…" He toyed with Emily's note once more. "I'd keep writing but I don't think I'm getting through." He buried his head in his hands, the anxiety and the tension of the past two months beginning to seep out of him. "I just… I thought maybe if I came out here I could track her down, just sit down and talk to her. Her letter gives her address as San Francisco. We could drive down, swing by…"

The rest of the plan faded to silence, and BJ took it upon himself to urge him on. "You're missing one important part of that plan – what exactly is it that you wanna do if we find her?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "I can't know that until I talk to her. You know, we'll do the responsible thing: sit down like two mature, intelligent adults. Two mature, intelligent adults and their four month old illegitimate kid. Talk it out, weigh up the pros and cons, work out the right thing to do."

BJ looked at his friend in disbelief. His words spoke of calm, rational decision-making, but his demeanour was that of a man in total emotional upheaval, the way he fidgeted and fumbled with the paper that had brought him this life-changing news. The trouble was, BJ couldn't tell which way his emotional compass was pointing. Did Hawkeye want to commit, or bolt? He decided to prod the sleeping bear. "You do realise that 'the right thing to do' might well be to marry her?"

"I know that. I thought about that a lot over the past two months. Lying awake at night wondering what happened to the girl you knocked up kinda leaves you with a lot of time to think, you know."

"And you think that's something you could do? Marry a girl you barely know? Someone you spent one night with over a year ago?"

"If she'll have me."

BJ flashed a grin. "Ok, who are you and what have you done with Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye's rolled his eyes, slouching back on the couch, arms folded. "Great – I threaten to get serious with someone and nobody takes me seriously. I don't believe this!"

"I _am_ serious. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's _admirable_ that you want to do the right thing by her, but marriage isn't something you should rush into – not under _any_ circumstances. You're not being serious – you're being an idiot! This isn't a commitment to you – it's a _gesture_. A big, dramatic and dare I say _stupid_ gesture."

"A _gesture_? I'm talking about asking for her hand in marriage and you call it a _gesture_?"

"You're not looking at the big picture! You're talking about the proposal like it's a big deal, but you don't sound like you even know what it actually _means_. If you're going to offer to do that you'd better be prepared for what comes after. What happens once the sense of nobility wears off, huh? You know what you're like – less than a year and you'll be chasing your neighbour's wife and making excuses to stay late in the office, sneaking sips of gin out of a bottle under your desk so you can face going home. You could wind up _hating_ each other."

"Anyone would think you were trying to talk me out of this. I thought you of all people would understand! You're the poster boy for Matrimony Incorporated! I figured you'd be all for this."

"Not if you're doing it for all the wrong reasons! Look, you think you've screwed up, and you're trying to compensate by throwing yourself on your sword. It's self-sacrifice! Marriage shouldn't be a punishment!"

Hawkeye blinked and stared at him mutely, and for a moment BJ wondered if he'd been too harsh. "Self-sacrifice?" Hawkeye repeated. He grimaced, wiping his sweaty palms on his knees, anxious and tense. "Okay, I realise we haven't seen each other in a while, but what exactly do you think I'll be sacrificing?"

BJ stared back. An awkward silence descended and he noticed with some concern that there was still a sadness in his friend's demeanour that he'd always ascribed to the horror of wartime Korea: the way his shoulders slumped, and his smiles never quite reached his eyes the way they used to. His expression had a permanent look of mourning to it. "I always thought you liked your life the way it was."

Hawkeye laughed a bitter kind of laugh as he downed the last of his gin. He stood and walked to the drinks cabinet. As he did so, he couldn't help but recall a similar walk he used to take, somewhere halfway across the world. Dusty wooden boards had now been replaced by plush carpet, and where there was once a homemade still propped up on old crates, there was now a gleaming stock of bottles and crystal glasses. He caught sight of himself in the reflection in the glass doors as he refilled his drink and turned away. Addressing his liquor, he smiled a thin, joyless smile. " _What life_?"

BJ tried his best to bury the dreadful sinking feeling. This was a lot to deal with. They'd had their share of difficult conversations in Korea; of emotional evenings where the death and the violence had become too much, and they'd crawled into their Martini glasses and spilled their guts to one another until the daylight began to creep through the cracks of their canvas home. The end of the war was supposed to change all that. They had gone back to the lives they had craved and missed for so long; back to happiness and carefree living and loving families. Clearly, in Hawkeye's case, it hadn't worked out like that. BJ pressed gently: "Care to elaborate on that?"

Hawkeye sighed and leaned heavily on the drinks cabinet, rattling the contents a little. "I moved back out to Maine as soon as I hit the States," he mumbled into his glass. "I didn't think I could hack it in Boston, and I wanted a fresh start. I guess I thought I'd come back home and carry on like nothing happened."

"I think we both know it doesn't work like that."

"But that's what _they_ want!" Hawkeye gestured aggressively with his glass, spilling gin on the carpet. "My dad, our patients, everyone in Crabapple Cove. They want the old Hawkeye back; the guy who was all smiles and jokes and not a care in the world. They look at me like they don't know me! People I've known all my life cross the street to avoid me! Do you have any idea how much that hurts?!"

His question went unanswered. BJ struggled to put himself in Hawkeye's shoes. Out here in California, with the bustling metropolis of San Francisco only a drive away, he'd had no end of love and support: his folks, Peg, Erin, all his friends, not to mention the hospital where he worked. It hadn't occurred to him how different things would be out in small-town New England.

Hawkeye sloped back to his seat, bringing the bottle with him. "Once I'd settled in, some of the guys decided to take me out to a bar – but we didn't make it that far. A car backfired in the parking lot and I hit the tarmac. They _laughed_. My first day back at work, this guy came in with a compound fracture, and the rest of the staff were all wondering why I spent an hour and a half hiding out the back waiting for my hands to stop shaking. Nobody out there _gets_ it!" He ran a hand through his hair, wiping at the thin sheen of perspiration that had gathered at his brow. He tried to calm down. Gazing through the window at the clear California sky, his expression softened. "She'd get it, though. She was out there. If I was ever going to settle down with anyone…"

He trailed off, the silence hanging, heavy with unanswered questions. BJ nodded and finally raised his first drink to his lips as Hawkeye poured himself a third.

"I need a shakeup, Beej," Hawkeye said, reading his disbelief. "Maybe this is it. Maybe this whole thing is a blessing in disguise. No more nosy neighbours asking why I freaked out at the store; no more lousy dates with women who treat me like a curiosity. I could move out here, I could start a new life, I could have my best friend living uptown instead of the other side of the country. And I could have a relationship with a woman who's shared two of the most significant things that ever happened to me. But I can't know until I talk to her."

"So this is your quick fix," BJ concluded, a dubious look on his face. "Like you can just turn up on her doorstep and see what happens, hoping it'll cure everything. Ten months is a long time! A lot could have changed since she wrote that letter. You can't expect to turn up after a year and pick up where you left off!"

Ah, BJ – ever the voice of reason. Hawkeye stared into his drink and tried to get his head around the vast plethora of possibilities, good and bad. It was no good imagining though – without a word from Emily, his future stretched out before him in a vast grey fog of unknown. "I'm not expecting anything. I just want to talk." He handed the folded letter to BJ, the address displayed at the top in neat cursive. "You think you can help me out?"

"You want me to go with you?"

An indifferent shrug. "If you wouldn't mind."

BJ smiled. He was familiar enough with Hawkeye's machismo. "That means you do."

"Yeah."

"Scared?"

"Terrified."

Letting Hawkeye's admittance pass without further comment, BJ regarded the letter thoughtfully. He spent enough time in San Francisco to be familiar with most neighbourhoods. "Sure, I can get you there. Shall we say Saturday?"

Hawkeye looked like a startled rabbit. "Saturday. Right,"

"Or… I could take a day off this week. Tomorrow. Let's say tomorrow."

A business-like nod from his friend.

"You're allowed to be nervous, you know," BJ assured him.

"I am? Well, that's good to know!" Hawkeye downed another gin. BJ watched as he wrestled with the cap on the bottle for several seconds, his hands shaking. Eventually he got in, and made several attempts at pouring before looking up at BJ with an expression of inebriated confusion. "Hey – this bottle's empty."


	2. Chapter 2

The address on Emily's letter was now occupied by a sweet old lady with seven cats and severe rheumatism. She had only just moved in, but made Hawkeye's day when she informed him that the Winters family had left a forwarding address. The house, she explained, had stood empty for some time before she moved in, so she had to concede that some mail may have gone missing during that time. Some bits and pieces had been picked up and forwarded, but she had no way of telling what was among them, and she was sorry she couldn't be of any more help.

BJ had thanked her politely, and Hawkeye had kissed her on the head and practically danced back to the fancy red and white Buick. It was a relief to see him smiling and laughing again, but the sight of him jittering about like that made BJ uneasy.

On the drive over to Oakland, he tried to pull Hawk out of the clouds, but his subtle and gently worded warnings had no effect. Hawkeye was bouncing off the roof of the car with enough enthusiasm to cause BJ some serious concern for the suspension.

"I knew it!" he was laughing, kicking back and resting his feet on the dashboard. "I knew something must've happened! She wasn't ignoring me – she never got the letters! All this time I've been waiting for a reply from an empty house! It makes _sense_ now!"

"Well that's one question ticked off the list," BJ replied, his tone a rather more subdued. "Now for all the others."

"That's a load off my mind!" Hawkeye exclaimed. "Imagine the stories we can tell our kid! 'Mommy and Daddy were star-crossed lovers, kept apart by the Pacific Ocean and a lousy mailing system!"

"Would you listen to yourself? You're getting ahead again! And get your feet off my dash. If we crash, one of my buddies at San Francisco General is gonna be removing your tibia from your chest cavity!"

"Okay, okay!" Hawkeye shoved his feet back in the footwell and sat in silence for a few brief moments, his knee vibrating. Then he burst into life again, cackling exuberantly. "Oh, Beej – it's like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders!"

"I noticed! I'm glad I kept the roof on or you might float away."

Hawkeye whooped delightedly and hugged himself. His feet found their way to the dashboard again and BJ gave up.

But his exuberance was short-lived. Once they pulled up outside the address, trepidation began to set in once more. The Winters homestead was a short, boxy little dwelling, wide-fronted with a spacious front porch and white painted balustrades. Two tiny dormer windows peered out from the dark grey roof like beady little eyes, and the house seemed to be watching them as BJ brought the car to a halt. Hawkeye's gaze fell on the mailbox, which had been freshly painted with the word 'WINTERS' daubed across it in bright white gloss. He gave BJ an anxious look. "Why do I feel like someone just let all the air outta me?" He stared at the house, hoping for a sign of life in one of the windows. Just a glimpse of Emily would be enough to spur him on, but all was still. "Well, here goes nothing," he declared with a tad more gusto than he felt.

"Hawk, wait." BJ's hand on his arm stopped him as he reached for the door handle.

"Are you kidding me?" Hawkeye shot back. "I've been waiting two months! If I don't go now I'm gonna freeze to the spot in terror! My kid'll be graduating from college before I make it out of the car!"

"You'll make it," BJ assured him gently, "but first, let's take some time to run through the possibilities."

"And ruin the surprise?" Hawkeye quipped. The words fell flat, probably because his voice was telling a joke that his face hadn't got.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but I just don't want to see you disappointed. You're investing a lot in this girl, and you haven't seen or spoken to her in over a year."

"Yeah, I never was good at the stock market…" Hawkeye slumped in his seat, crossing his hands in his lap. "Ok, shoot. I'm listening."

Ignoring his reluctant tone, BJ pressed on. "You need to consider some of the outcomes here, before you go in all guns blazing. She could have moved on, she could have someone else."

"I could probably take him."

BJ shot him a sarcastic grin. "Easy, slugger, just _think_ about this. A lot could have happened since she sent that letter! You've built this whole scenario around her and you don't even know what's been going on with her. She's become your escape plan out of a life you hate. But what if you're not on the same page anymore? What if she's got plans for her future that don't include you? What if she doesn't _want_ to marry you?"

"Who could resist these baby blues?" Hawkeye batted his eyelashes, but the lack of spirit in his voice betrayed him.

"Okay," BJ pressed on, taking a deep breath, "what if she's had the baby adopted?"

"But she said in her letter–"

"I know, but things change. Raising a baby is hard work – _expensive_ too. Maybe she couldn't cope. Maybe she changed her mind. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I think you need to be aware that there's every possibility–"

"Are you done?" Hawkeye snapped, turning on BJ with anger in his eyes.

BJ shut his mouth and looked away.

"You think I hadn't considered that right from the start? You want to sit there giving me hypotheticals and possibilities and worst case scenarios, well don't bother! I know there's every chance of that. _Believe_ me, I know. For all she knew, I'd bailed on her. I wasn't there for her – but I can be here now. Stand by her, support her, whatever she wants. And if that's what's happened… well, I think I'd feel better hearing it from her." He regarded the little house again with a nervous gaze. "I just wanna _know,_ you know! Even if it breaks my heart. But at least we could be there for each other. After all, it took two of us to get her into this mess."

"As they say, 'it takes two to tango'."

"If we'd settled for a tango, we wouldn't have a problem." Hawkeye shot BJ a half-hearted smile.

His friend laughed, but Hawkeye wasn't paying attention anymore. His mind flickered back briefly to a midnight stroll through Korea, a thousand stars reflected in dark brown eyes. Hawkeye had known nothing of astronomy, and had just picked random clusters of glowing pinpricks that shone through the empty darkness and invented his own names for them. Emily had laughed in a way that made it clear her presence had nothing to do with his knowledge of the night sky, and distracted him with a kiss. Hawkeye abandoned his brief interest in space, and turned his attentions to another, closer, less celestial body. It was a romantic way to start a life, and he imagined himself telling that story one day… Realising he was getting ahead of himself again, he dragged himself away from the hillside, away from honey-blonde hair and made-up constellations.

Maybe he _was_ over-thinking the romance: it was cold, he was drunk, and it was all over far too quickly. Furthermore, he'd wound up lying on a particularly rocky patch of ground and had bruises down his spine for weeks, and he sliced his leg open on a patch of thorns and had to bite his tongue in an attempt not to swear like a trooper. Their date had ended with Hawkeye whimpering like a kicked puppy and Emily had spent more time kissing his knee better than she'd spent kissing him anywhere else.

He really couldn't tell any more. His memory of the whole night had become infused with the roseate glow of knowing what had happened, and Hawkeye just didn't know what to think.

"Ready?"

BJ's request interrupted his reminiscence and Hawkeye looked up. His friend's face was serious yet warm, his earlier sharpness forgotten. Wordlessly, he leaned over and gave BJ an awkward sideways hug. An arm closed around his shoulders and they sat like that for a moment until Hawkeye pulled away. "Let's do this."

He grasped the door handle and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The walk up to the front porch seemed to take an age. BJ fell into step beside him and they advanced up the narrow concrete pathway together. Hawkeye counted twelve drab grey paving slabs. Two wooden steps, and just over five feet of white-painted decking. Then his world shrank to the front door that stood in front of him.

BJ knocked so that Hawkeye didn't have to. He thought it best – Hawkeye had turned a greenish shade of white and looked like he was about to keel over. BJ placed a hand on his back. "You'll be fine."

Hawkeye said something that didn't really constitute words, and swallowed the lump that had taken up residence in his throat.

A figure appeared through the frosted window of the front door. Short, blond, most likely female. Hawkeye's heart pounded in his chest and he wiped his sweaty palms on his suit. The door opened, and instantly all that adrenaline kicked up another notch – and not in a good way.

The woman he was looking at was very similar to Emily, only maybe thirty years older. Probably less, but the bags under her eyes and her drawn, tired features made her look older still. Hawkeye hadn't considered the possibility of having to deal with Emily's parents, and he wondered briefly if now would be a good time to pretend he was a travelling shoe salesman.

He forced his panic down inside as Mrs Winters looked up at him curiously. "Yes?"

He hadn't rehearsed this part. He'd got all manner of grovelling apologies, flowery declarations and heartfelt promises memorised to the letter for Emily's ears, but planned nothing with regard to her parents. He'd stopped thinking about that side of things since he'd started college! Prim housewives and stern fathers were mercifully no longer the gatekeepers of eligible ladies' personal lives once said ladies had absconded to the teaching hospitals, sorority houses and warzones of the world, and Hawkeye had forgotten how to deal with them.

BJ bailed him out for the opener: "Hello, Mrs Winters?" Charming smile, hat off. BJ was good at this. "I'm Doctor Hunnicutt and this is my associate Doctor Pierce. We're really sorry to trouble you like this, but we were wondering if you could help us."

An elbow in his ribs told Hawkeye it was his turn to do the talking. He quickly yanked his hat off and held out his hand. Mrs Winters shook it nervously, giving him a deeply troubled look. She was a mousey woman, wide brown eyes and a mouth that seemed perpetually drawn into a thin line. "Like B- uh… Doctor Hunnicutt said, I'm sorry to drop in unexpectedly, but I'm trying to reach Emily. Is she here?" The name hung in the air like a question. "I served with her – in Korea. I was a doctor there."

There was a sudden look of realisation on Mrs Winters' face. She pulled her hand free from Hawkeye's like she'd been burned.

Who'd have thought those simple words could serve as an admittance of guilt? "I realise I'm probably not the most popular person in this household right now," Hawkeye said, his voice wavering, even as he tried to make light of the situation, "but I really need to talk to Emily."

Mrs Winters stepped back a little, looking Hawkeye up and down. "I think you'd better come in," she said, in a voice that was neither warm nor inviting, but remarkably free of venom or dislike

Hawkeye glanced down at his feet as he crossed the threshold, manoeuvring his tan brogues over the strip of wood where painted pine met lacquered parquet. BJ soon joined him.

"Wait here. I'll get Brendan." The door was closed, and Mrs Winters shuffled off upstairs, leaving Hawkeye and BJ loitering in the hall at the foot of the stairs.

Hawkeye shot BJ a forced smile. "She's gone to get Brendan. The only question now is whether Brendan is going to hug me, punch me, or shoot me."

"Just relax, Hawk."

"I am relaxed! I'm perfectly relaxed! You just can't tell because I'm so nervous!" He tugged awkwardly at the cuffs of his grey linen suit. He felt ridiculous. After years spent in combat fatigues he could never quite adjust to suits and shirts.

They waited. Seconds ticked by like hours. Hawkeye shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and polished his shoes on the backs of his trouser legs. BJ glanced at his watch. Hawkeye regarded their surroundings with curiosity. The hallway was typically airy and modern, all clean lines and crisp edges; walls painted duck-egg blue and shelves dotted with department store vases and mass-produced ceramics. The only pictures on the wall were framed art store prints of blocky modern abstract pieces in drab greens and browns. Hawkeye was no art expert but they said nothing to him other than 'these are the colours that match the décor'.

"There's no photographs," he observed in a hushed tone. "Why are there no photographs?"

"Maybe they're still unpacking."

"But it's the first thing you do, right? Even if you've just moved in, you put some photographs up!"

"Hawk?"

"I mean that's your way of saying the house is yours, right?"

"Hawkeye!"

BJ's hushed warning made him stop talking, and he looked up. A tall, broad figure had appeared at the top of the staircase. Mr Winters descended, never taking his eyes off his visitors, and as he drew closer Hawkeye felt unbelievably small. The man was as tall as BJ, and about as wide as the pair of them combined. He was clad in heavy cord slacks, held up with thick braces that stood out from his crisp blue shirt as they stretched over his barrel chest and proud belly. He had a short, bristly moustache, which seemed to emphasise the way he turned his nose up at them as he passed by, and a mustard-yellow bow-tie that clinched around his thick neck in a manner that reminded Hawkeye of the collar on a particularly rotund family dog he owned in his youth.

He was older than his wife, and his grey hair and severe expression made Hawkeye feel like a child in comparison. He didn't speak, but jerked his head in an indication to them to follow. Hawkeye hesitated, and BJ pressed a hand to his back again to nudge him forward, and, with heavy, unsteady steps, he followed Mr Winters down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

They joined Mr Winters in a small, dark den at the back of the house. The drapes were closed in this room, and, given the loud, modern wallpaper in clashing olive greens and burnt oranges, that was something of a blessing. A long, low, cocktail sofa ran along one wall in front of shelves stacked with books. While they stood, Hawkeye tried to distract himself from his racing thoughts by scanning the titles: mostly hobby and housekeeping books from ' _Homes and Gardens_ ' magazines and similar publications. Cookery, gardening, interiors, that sort of rubbish.

In the corner, Mr Winters poured himself a glass of bourbon, replacing the bottle without offering any around. "So," the old man said at last, "which one of you fine gentlemen is the little punk who couldn't keep his hands off my daughter?"

Hawkeye gave BJ a look that said 'please send my body back to Maine' and stepped forward. "Uh… that'll be me."

"And what's he doing here?" Mr Winters jabbed a finger in BJ's direction.

"Moral support, sir," BJ offered in as a friendly a tone as he dared.

Mr Winters laughed – a sneering, bark of a noise that made Hawkeye jump. "Moral support – is that right? Well, you're not doing a good job if his morals are anything to go by. Alright – you, stay there. And you..." He glared at Hawkeye and gestured towards the couch. "Sit down."

"I'd rather–"

"That wasn't an invitation!"

Hawkeye lowered himself onto the couch with as much dignity as possible – which wasn't much, given that he now felt like he was about six inches off the ground.

"You look older than I expected," Winters stated. It sounded like casual conversation were it not for the slightly ominous tone to his voice.

"That's what I think every time I look in the mirror."

"Oh, a funny-man!"

Hawkeye bit back his retort. With some effort, he re-arranged the speech he had prepared in his head. It was a hasty revision – low key, business-like, and apologetic – but he launched into it. "I'm guessing you're wondering why it's taken me so long to get in touch," he began, fidgeting awkwardly. How he _hated_ this. He'd wanted to make his apologies to Emily, not to her aloof, disapproving father. Where _was_ she?

Winters knocked back his bourbon and coughed. "I couldn't give a good goddamn why you took so long," he stated. "What I've been wondering for this past year is where I screwed up raising my girl."

That took Hawkeye by surprise. "You didn't!"

"All evidence to the contrary," Winters replied coldly, narrowing his eyes at the skinny doctor sat cringing on his couch. "And I'm looking at exhibit A."

Hawkeye shuddered under his furious gaze and steeled himself. "Sir, I'll have you know Emily was one of the finest young women I met in Korea, and an excellent nurse. I saw her stand in pre-op literally holding guys together for hours, waiting for a free operating table! I saw her pull twenty hour shifts and finish up by making coffee while everyone else fell asleep on the stretchers. The coffee tasted lousy but that's not the point! If you could see what your daughter did out there, you'd be _proud._ I was in Korea for three years, and–"

"Oh, Korea Korea Korea. I'm sick of hearing about Korea! You don't think we got this from her too?" Slamming his glass down, Winters advanced across the room, bearing down on Hawkeye, meaty fists swinging at his sides. "Let me make one thing clear, you snotty little grease-stain! I don't give a rat's ass about Korea! I don't care what _you_ did out there, and I don't care what _she_ did. So what if she could hold some tommy's busted arm together? She couldn't hold her goddamned legs together!"

Hawkeye tensed, rage bubbling to the surface, and he shot BJ a look of disbelief. Gently, BJ just shook his head. Fighting every urge to kick back, Hawkeye bit his lip.

"I didn't want her to go out there," Winters was grumbling as he stomped back to his desk, pouring himself another bourbon. "I told her outright – a warzone is no place for a woman. It's full of danger, it's full of disease, and it's full of sleazy little guys like you who think they can charm the pants off anything that moves! And don't try to deny it – I know what you army types are like. How many women have you worked your way through, huh?"

"I think you're missing the point," BJ spoke up at last. "Whether you like it or not, what's done is done. The fact of it is that your daughter and my friend have created a life together. We came here because Doctor Pierce wants to offer his support to Emily – and to their child."

Winter gave a derisive snort and sneered at Hawkeye. "How does he even know it's his?"

"She told me." Hawkeye looked up. He fumbled in his pocket for Emily's letter. "She wrote to me as soon as she knew. I just didn't get it until–"

"Did she now? Why should you believe that? She whored herself out to you for nothing but a smile, so how do you know she didn't do the same for half the other guys in Korea? What makes you so special, huh?"

BJ watched as Hawkeye closed in on himself, his head dropping. "Oh, come on!" He was losing his rag now. "I get that you're upset, but isn't that pushing it a little too far? One wartime fling and suddenly she's the Scarlet Woman of Seoul!"

Winters turned on BJ. "You know, for a moral support guy, you sure got a mouth on ya!"

"A hundred and six." Hawkeye's words were nearly lost, he spoke so quietly, his voice almost disappearing as he mumbled at the floor.

Wheeling around, Winters glowered at him. "What did you say?"

Hawkeye looked up. "A hundred and six. That's what you wanted to hear, right? You wanted to know how many women…"

"Come on, Hawk, this won't help."

"… Well, there's your answer. I counted. Hell, I was _proud_. I threw a party to celebrate my centennial." Slowly, he got to his feet, the confession somehow spurring him on. It felt _liberating_ to put his past into words, and if it took some of the heat off Emily, then _anything_ this guy could throw at him would be worth it. "See, that's the kind of guy I am – _was._ So before you go dragging your daughter's name through the gutter, you might want to pick another target. If you really want to blame someone for this, blame it on me. I can admit I've screwed up – I've made a _lot_ of mistakes – but I came here to try and fix this. I want to talk to Emily; provide for my kid; do whatever I have to do to make this right."

"You don't have to," Winters sniffed disdainfully with a wave of his hand. "The kid's not your responsibility any more. You're off the hook."

Hawkeye felt like someone had just sucked all the air out of the room. His insides seemed to clench into a hard knot and his skin prickled with a cold sweat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Casually finishing his bourbon, Winters took a step closer to Hawkeye, lowering his voice. "It means the bastard brat got adopted out to a _real_ family – probably while you were out entertaining number one-hundred-and-seven or wherever the hell you're up to now. So, you can just relax, Doctor Casanova. It's _done_ – the papers are signed, the matter's dealt with. We don't need you, or anything you have to offer. Now, why don't you take yourself, and your buddy, and _scram_?"

With those words, Winters turned to place his bottle back on a shelf.

Hawkeye watched as if in a dream, his words echoing as the life he'd been building up in his head for two months crumbled to dust. He tried to blink away the tears that threatened to fall, force back the wave of nausea that overwhelmed him. He daren't show weakness in front of this man. He swayed a little, his eyes glazed and unfocussed. "But… she didn't… I mean, in her letter… in her letter she… she was _happy_! She said it was the only good thing she brought back from Korea!" For the second time, his hands shaking, he tried to get the letter out of his pocket.

But Winters merely scoffed. "Shows you just how little she knows! She was an unmarried woman, she'd lost her job, and you weren't even around! Trust me on this, it was the best thing she could have done, no matter what dumb-ass fairy-story she told you."

Staring at him in disbelief, Hawkeye let his hands drop to his sides, clutching the envelope tightly. "You really don't care?" he murmured. "These are your daughter's words to me! This is how _she_ felt about one of the most important things that _ever_ happened to her, and you're _not interested_?" He shook with impotent fury as Winters waved the letter away with a scowl. "Goddamn it, why won't you _listen_?!"

"I've heard enough," Winters muttered. "I heard enough from _her_ , and now I've heard enough from you. I'm done here. You weren't here to help – not when it counted! As far as we were concerned you were a deadbeat who was only looking for a good time. You got what you wanted and you were out of the picture, and _I_ had to deal with the consequences! You've no right to come in months down the line and start making judgements – no right _at all_!"

Hawkeye's legs gave way, and he crumpled back onto the sofa. Words failed him. Was this what _she'd_ thought of him? He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders tremoring. The shaking overwhelmed him, his breathing becoming ragged, his chest tightening. He fought to stop himself hyperventilating with limited success and looked around desperately, hoping Emily might walk in at any moment. He had never wanted to see another human being so much in all his life. If he could just see her, hear her voice, hold her in his arms, apologise and beg her forgiveness. The optimism of her words when she had written to him ghosted across his memory, and he imagined, with sickening dread, what it would have taken to change her mind; what kind of pressure would have been necessary for her to finally crack.

He looked up, finding Winters staring at him, unmoving. "Can I see her? I just… I want to speak to her."

"I told you," Mr Winters repeated himself, his voice soft, but dangerous, "it was the right thing to do. And that's all you need to know. So why don't you just leave? Go on, off you go."

"You pushed her into this…" The accusation escaped him before he could bite his tongue.

Winters immediately puffed himself up, his moustache twitching in rage. "I took care of it, like any responsible parent would. You should be thanking me!"

"I want to talk to her! Just for a minute – _please_!"

"Not a chance."

"Let me talk to Emily!" Hawkeye tried again, stronger this time. "Let me hear _her_ side! Don't you stand there and speak for her! How _dare_ you assume that you know what was best for her – for _us_. You don't know me! You don't know the first thing about me!"

Winters turned on him, squaring his shoulders and drawing himself up to his full height. "Young man, don't make me tell you again, because you won't like what I have to say."

Suddenly Hawkeye was back in his girlfriend's parents' house when he was seventeen years old, being told in no uncertain terms why he wasn't good enough for their little girl. Well, to hell with that! He'd lived a whole other lifetime since then – and oh, what a lifetime it was! – and he wasn't about to be spoken to like a child. Rage flared up in him, and he found himself back on his feet, raising his voice, somehow dragging up a confidence he hadn't felt since before he'd left Korea: here was something he could _fight_. Here there was real danger, someone _threatening_ him, and the rush of adrenaline was exhilarating as he met the man's angry gaze head on. "You've no legal right to do this! You can't speak for her! She's a twenty-four year old woman!"

"And I'm her father!"

"And I'm a thirty-four year old grown man who won't be intimidated by your bullshit! I'm not some nineteen year old college kid you can threaten with your ham fists and your loud voice! I spent three years in a warzone! I've lived through air raids and shell-fire and snipers, so if you think I'm afraid of you, you've got another think coming to you! Now you _let me see her!_ " His words seemed to provoke no response, so he stepped closer. " _You let me see the mother of my child!_ " There was still no reply. "Screw you!" Raging with unstoppable fury against the unmoving Winters, he shoved past him, out past BJ, into the hall, up the stairs.

"Hawk!" BJ yelled after him. But it was no use. Hawkeye was already halfway up the stairs, bounding up three at a time, yelling Emily's name. BJ followed as quickly as he could, finding Hawkeye yanking open doors, tearing through the place like a tornado. "Hawk, stop! This won't help!"

Hawkeye didn't hear him. He was lost in grief and rage, BJ's words drowned out by his own screaming. BJ grabbed him and pulled him out of another empty bedroom before he could do any more damage. Hawkeye fought against him, screaming and cursing, struggling to get loose, but BJ held on.

"She's not here." It was Mrs Winters who spoke, and at last Hawkeye stilled. BJ didn't let him go – not yet. They turned, and the tiny, frail woman was standing at the top of the stairs, pressed against the wall. Looking at her, Hawkeye felt a stab of guilt. She looked terrified. Stepping forward, her hands wringing, she spoke again: "Don't you think this has been hard for all of us? What else did you expect us to do?"

Mr Winters stepped up onto the landing, placing himself between his wife and the maniac who had just torn through his home. "Could you two _gentlemen_ see about removing yourselves from my house?" His voice was calm, yet the menace was palpable.

Hawkeye pulled free from BJ's grasp and composed himself as best he could. "Where is she?"

"That's not your concern!" Winters barked. "But for what it's worth, it'll be a cold day in hell before I let her set foot in this house again for all the humiliation she's caused us! We had to move away, make a fresh start. And now you two come in here – you've invaded my house, you've terrified my wife, and you've dragged all our problems back to our door."

"You _threw her out_?" It was BJ who responded this time, glancing around the empty, soulless house in disbelief. "Your own daughter?" His mind wandered to Erin, his own little girl. He couldn't imagine doing such a thing – not in a million years. No wonder the house felt so cold… "Why did you even let us in here?" he asked, his heart breaking a little as he saw Hawkeye's eyes squeeze closed against the tears. "You could have said all this on the doorstep!"

"I'm not airing _my_ dirty laundry in front of the neighbours!" Winters scoffed at him. "Besides," he shot Hawkeye a look of sheer contempt, "I guess I wanted to see what kind of a man it took to get my Emily to give it up without so much as a promise. Clearly not much of one. Now, for the last time, _get out._ And if I catch either of you round here again, I'll get a restraining order – right after I get my gun! You understand me?"

Hawkeye sniffed and composed himself, glaring back at Mr Winters, his head high. "Sir?" He addressed the man formally, but in a tone BJ had heard him use on countless Colonels, Majors and even the odd General, and it was far from respectful. "I'll do as you ask. I will leave your house, I will stay away from you and your property, and I will leave you and your wife alone – but I will never, _ever_ understand you."

With those words, Hawkeye pushed past him and made his way down the stairs. BJ followed without a word, and Mrs Winters couldn't usher them out fast enough.

BJ could see Hawkeye's resolve cracking even as they crossed the hall. As Mrs Winters fumbled with the latch, he was already starting to shake. The door was opened, and as BJ gently ushered him out onto the porch, Hawkeye clutched at the terrified woman's hands, whispering: "Please! Just tell me where she is! I'll never bother you again, just _tell_ me!"

Mrs Winters shook her head sadly. "It's best you don't know. Please, just go. Let us move on with our lives." Her plea was heartfelt, and BJ couldn't allow Hawkeye to pressure her further. He had to pull him away, and, as he did, Hawkeye crumbled. They stepped out into the open air, and the door was slammed behind them.

They stood on the porch in silence, Hawkeye struck dumb with shock, BJ at a loss for anything to say of any comfort. Eventually, Hawkeye stepped off the porch, wanting to put as much distance between himself and that awful house as possible. He walked up the path as if in a trance, BJ watching with more than a little concern. He reached the sidewalk and stopped, staring up at the cloudless sky. The spring was unseasonably warm, and he turned his face up towards the sun. He refused to cry. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. So determined was he in burying the emotion that churned within him that he scarcely noticed BJ approaching until the other man put his hands atop his trembling shoulders and held him. "Hawk, I'm so sorry…"

His presence was a comfort, but Hawkeye had to cut him off. His stomach cramped, bile burning in his throat, and with a pained groan, he staggered to the kerb and threw up into the gutter.

BJ didn't even pause. He was at Hawkeye's side in an instant, running soothing hands up and down his back. "I got you," he whispered, his heart breaking a little. "I got you." As he stood there, he recalled with painful clarity how Hawkeye had done the same for him when they'd first met, at another roadside in another country, and it occurred to him that their friendship had gone full circle.

At last, Hawkeye stopped retching, and BJ passed him a handkerchief. Hawkeye accepted it gratefully, slumping against a convenient palm tree, coughing a little. "You know," he rasped, his hands shaking, "that list of worst case scenarios you gave me? I think you missed that one out."

"Yeah…" BJ sighed. He realised now they'd been too eager. They should have taken another day or two to really talk things through, to go in prepared for every eventuality. But it was too late now. It had never even occurred to him that they might not get to see Emily at all; that Emily's joy at her impending motherhood would be over-ruled by her folks despite her age and ability. They'd known her only as Lt. Winters out in Korea, strong and skilled and capable. She would have made a great parent, with or without Hawkeye.

Hawkeye was now dabbing at his lapel. He looked a mess. His eyes were red, his brow glistening with perspiration. All their talk of marriage proposals and agonising over what to do seemed so frivolous now, with Hawkeye as broken as he was, and Emily nowhere to be seen.

BJ thought back to Korea, to the way Hawkeye was with women, particularly when BJ had first met him. Every week it was someone different, and every week he could come strutting into the Swamp with stories that made the more conservative man blush. BJ took it all in his stride, and his usual good humour. He didn't exactly condone Hawkeye's womanising, but he wouldn't dream of condemning him for it either. From what he knew of his friend's personal life, Hawkeye didn't lie or string women along – although he had confessed that he wasn't nearly so conscientious in his first few months after he'd been drafted – and there never seemed to be any sort of animosity between Hawk and his girlfriend _du jour_ when they finally parted company. Hawkeye was no angel, but as he fought to make sense of the events of the past half hour, and of the awful news they'd been given, there was one thing BJ was sure of: neither Hawkeye nor Emily deserved this.

"Are you okay?" BJ asked, once Hawkeye was done composing himself.

Hawkeye ignored the question. "Can you believe that son of a bitch?" he muttered, his throat raw. "Acting like he knows what's best for her!" He coughed again, grimaced, and turned his head to spit onto the tarmac. "There's no way Emily wanted to give up that baby," he muttered, his eyes glistening again. "He made her do it. I know he did. She wouldn't have..." His voice cracked and he buried his face against BJ's shoulder as he lost his battle against his emotions once more as he ground the words out: " _He made her give away our child_!"

BJ held him gently. It hurt to see his friend so distraught, but somewhere in the back of his mind, the seed of a thought began to bloom – a thought that had been bothering him since Hawkeye had first latched onto the idea of fatherhood – and he realised another possible explanation for Hawkeye's determination to embrace this baby into his life. There was more than one loss he was grieving for. But now wasn't the time to bring it up; he was no Sidney Freedman. So, instead, he simply let Hawkeye grieve. "I know," he said. "I don't doubt that for a minute."

"You gotta help me find her, Beej. Her and the baby. You'll help me, right?"

"I'll try." He was glad Hawkeye couldn't see his face; couldn't see the fearful look in his eyes, or the way his lips drew into a thin, worried line as he contemplated the path ahead of them. It was obvious from Hawkeye's anger that he had a long way to go before he'd abandon this road he'd set out on, but something in the back of BJ's mind told him that they'd reached the end of the line before they'd even begun.


	4. Chapter 4

They travelled home from Oakland in silence, Hawkeye staring mutely out of the window as quaint suburban houses flickered by. To think he'd debated moving here – probably somewhere like this – to be with Emily and their baby. It couldn't have been more perfect – his best friend only a few miles away, a new start in a new city. It was like everything had come together for him. He'd had a way out! Out of the town that had come to despise him; out of the unfamiliar, awkward tension that had arisen between him and his father; out of the cycle of joyless, shallow Saturday night dates. Now each one of those cute little family homes was an extra kick in the gut; another nail in the coffin of the life he'd clung to for two months.

When they got back home, Peg asked how their day had gone, and BJ just shook his head sadly, sparing Hawkeye the agony of having to explain the details. She had hugged him and squeezed his hand. To his credit, Hawkeye tried his best to play the grateful houseguest. He sat down to lunch with them and made an attempt at conversation, but the afternoon was peppered with apologies and excuses, whereupon Hawkeye would leave the room, swiftly and without reason. On some occasions he'd lock himself in the bathroom for several minutes, on others BJ found him loitering in the hall with his head in his hands. But each time he would wave away BJ's efforts to talk, compose himself, take a deep breath, and return to the family room with a charming smile.

But the façade was a flimsy one: every time Erin toddled over to him, gurgling and chattering, the hand that he would run lovingly through her blonde ringlets would shake, and the smile he gave her would tremble. Once the sun had set, he clearly gave himself permission to drop the charade, and had disappeared up to the spare room to crawl into a bottle for the remainder of evening.

BJ had tried to be strong after the events of the day, but he gave Erin an extra few kisses when he tucked her in that night, and when he and Peg retired to bed an hour or so later, he sat and held her for the longest time. She didn't ask questions – she knew enough to understand why he needed to feel close to her. BJ pressed a kiss to her temple and they sat in comfortable, comforting silence. Eventually Peg fell asleep, and BJ lowered her head to the pillow and covered her with a blanket.

He couldn't sleep. He found himself listening for signs of movement through the wall that divided Hawkeye's room from his: footsteps as he got up and paced the floor for the seventh or eighth time, springs protesting as he tossed this way and that, and, at last, the thud of the empty bottle hitting the floorboards. It was torture. There had been times in Korea where one or the other of them had found things too much, certainly towards the end, and it was far easier to reach out and comfort someone when they only slept three feet away from you. But Hawkeye had locked the door, and BJ – happy, lucky BJ with his loving wife and adorable little daughter – couldn't get close enough to console him.

Sleep came slowly, and brought with it little comfort. BJ dreamed only of darkness and shadows, walking with Erin through a woodland that seemed familiar only in a distant memory. She fell behind, laughing, distracted by her surroundings, and when BJ turned, she was gone. And then he was running, dashing through the trees, stumbling and falling, screaming his daughter's name.

He awoke breathless, covered in a cold sweat. Before he'd even got his bearings, he threw off the covers and damned near fell out of bed, his feet hitting the floor shortly before his knee hit the bedpost. Still he ran, full tilt, down to Erin's bedroom at the end of the hall, and didn't stop until he was holding his little girl in his arms.

Pacing the nursery, he fought to regain control. Erin was nestled safely against his chest, still sleeping, unaware that her father had even lifted her from her bed. Everything was fine, but the panic that had taken hold took some persuasion to subside. The continual reassurance of 'it was just a dream' did little to calm his body, still pumping with adrenaline. Nightmares weren't an uncommon occurrence for him, but this was new, and it didn't take a genius to figure out where it had come from.

As he paced, he became aware of a figure standing in the doorway, watching him, and he squinted into the darkness. "Hawk?"

Hawkeye shuffled into the room, bleary eyed and drowsy. "What time is it?"

He was still in a state of panic, but BJ forced himself to breathe normally as he glanced at his watch. Erin grumbled at the movement and nuzzled against his shoulder. "Uh… nearly six."

"Oh."

Hawkeye looked like hell. His eyes were swollen and red, and he was shaking. BJ stared at him, worried. "Have you slept at all?"

"A little." Hawkeye rubbed his eyes, and gave BJ another curious glance. "Are you okay?"

Normally BJ would have confided in his best friend over his nightmare, but this wasn't the time. He knew what had caused it, and it hardly seemed fair to lean on Hawkeye for support over his troubled dreams – not when they were a product of Hawkeye's own troubled reality. "I'm fine," he lied, his voice taking on an unusually high pitch.

Hawkeye stared back at him. "Hmm," he said, and let it slide. He glanced at Erin for a moment, struck by her innocence, the way she curled so trustingly against her father. He turned away. "I'll put some coffee on." And then he was gone.

The morning passed as if in a dream. Peg made breakfast for them all; BJ took care of Erin; Hawkeye made the coffee and distributed it to each of them, and BJ declined to comment when he saw him slip a drop of whiskey into his own cup. With both BJ and Peg having to return to work, Hawkeye followed him to the hospital, tagging along like a puppy, and locked himself away in his friend's office. It was either that staying home with Erin and the babysitter, which would have been tantamount to torture. BJ had seen the way Hawkeye's heart had broken just at the sight of his daughter, the reminder too painful to bear at this delicate time.

"You sure you're gonna be okay here?" BJ had enquired before starting his daily rounds.

Hawkeye gave him a thin smile and merely closed the door. Through the frosted glass, BJ saw him retreat to the desk, and he couldn't help but wonder what he would be coming back to later that day.

Hours passed. BJ watched the clock as he went through his usual check-ups, prescriptions, and other routine procedures. A merciful gap in his schedule gave him an hour's grace just before lunch, and he used it to make a trip to the records department. The hunt was startlingly simple, the staff overwhelmingly co-operative, but by the time one o'clock came around, BJ was dreading having to make the trip upstairs to bring his findings to his friend's attention.

Clutching a cup of coffee, and with a file tucked under one arm, BJ began the long climb up to his office with heavy feet and an even heavier heart. He could hear Hawkeye's voice from halfway down the corridor, and when he pushed the door to the office open, he was met with chaos.

Three phone books open on the desk; a large map of California unfurled and annotated on the couch; a couple of notebooks open and covered in Hawkeye's typical doctor's scrawl. Several balled up sheets of paper littered the floor in the vague vicinity of the trash can, and a largely uneaten plate of sandwiches sat forgotten on the coffee table.

Hawkeye was leaning over the mess he'd made, telephone clamped to his ear, suit jacket abandoned and the sleeves of his sweat-stained, maroon shirt rolled up. He looked like a flustered stocks analyst on a trading floor in Wall Street, only he was bartering for something worth a lot more than a measly hundred thousand bucks.

"No, I already explained that to the first guy!" Hawkeye was saying, his voice frantic. He tore at his hair, pacing, gesticulating wildly with BJ's best fountain pen, splattering ink blots up the wall and down Hawkeye's trouser leg. "No, he tried that. He couldn't help. I wanted to– _Because he hung up on me_! That's why! I need you to look for the _mother's_ name… What do you mean you can't do that? How is that confidential? My bank asks for _my_ mother's name to prove I'm _allowed_ to hear the confidential stuff! What kind of security policy is this? If I give you my account number can we talk about my relatives?!"

Clearly having been cut off, Hawkeye slammed the phone down. BJ set the coffee down on the desk for him.

"Sixteen adoption agencies, three different States, zero results!" he announced, balling up another piece of paper and throwing it at the trash. It bounced off the wall and rolled under the couch. "Some of them won't tell me anything. If I'm lucky, they tell me they have nothing to tell. So far I have seven definite 'no's and nine distinct 'maybe but we won't tell you's. Basically, I have a big fat nothing."

BJ moved Hawkeye's research aside. Under the map of California he found one of Nevada, and below that, Arizona. Finally striking leather under the deserts of the American West, he lowered himself onto the couch, cradling the file in his hands – lunch could wait. "Not quite nothing."

"You're right – technically I have minus-two, but I rounded up in the interests of morale."

"Hawk…"

" _And_ I have Oregon to move onto next – a whole new State just waiting to disappoint me and toy with my emotions!" He shot BJ a joyless grin.

"I did some digging myself," BJ pressed on while Hawkeye leafed through his notes and grappled with yet another map. "Fortunately I have some friends in the records department…"

Hawkeye looked up, pausing in his battle with the map. He allowed Oregon to drop to the floor. "Yeah?" He perched himself on the desk, eyes brimming with hope.

BJ hated to shatter him all over again. He shook his head sadly. "It's not good news."

But Hawkeye didn't break. He inhaled deeply, composed himself, and moved closer. "Tell me what you know," he asked quietly.

BJ recited his findings to the carpet, unable to look his friend in the eye. "Like I said, I had a talk with someone in the records department. Luckily for us, it turns out Emily Winters is on our books. I have her medical files right here."

Hawkeye twitched, but he suppressed the urge to tear the file from BJ's hands. "Don't tell me she had the baby here!"

"No. But about four months ago we had a request to send her details to another hospital – in Sacramento."

"Sacramento! That's nearly a hundred miles away! What was she doing all the way out there?" Hawkeye paced the tiny office, wringing his hands. "What about the baby?" he asked eventually.

"There's nothing."

"Sex? Weight? Hair colour? Amusingly shaped birth marks? Anything?"

"It doesn't mention the baby," BJ told him emphatically. "Not at all. Just that she was admitted, and discharged a few days later on December 29th. I only figured why she was there because it tallies with the due date in her letter."

Hawkeye's brow furrowed in confusion and worry. Surely even a stillbirth would be registered on her medical file? "I don't get it. How can something like that not be in her file? She went into that hospital and came out with a _person_ – that's not something you forget to write down!"

BJ shook his head in disbelief, standing and opening the file. "Hawk, why do you think she went to Sacramento and not here? _They're pretending it never happened_. Her parents, the hospital, the records – they're all playing the same game. We're chasing a paper trail someone has tried very hard to bury."

Hawkeye was baffled – he felt for all the world like he'd slipped and stumbled into a pulp-fiction thriller. "How is that legal?"

"It's plenty legal! The birth is reported – just no more than it has to be. You know how they can get with the unmarried women – all that cloak and dagger stuff." He shuddered distastefully.

Hawkeye felt a sudden chill and he stared at BJ, his eyes narrowing. "I can't say as I do, no."

BJ looked back for a moment, shocked that Hawkeye hadn't encountered the whole furtive process in his own workplace. "Really? You never saw this in Boston? Your residency? Anything?"

Hawkeye continued to stare at him. "I specialised in thoracic surgery, BJ. Not much call for me up in OB/GYN."

BJ sighed. He'd never thought Hawkeye would be this naïve, and he hadn't thought for one dreadful moment that he'd have to be the one to tell him this. "We get them coming into the hospital every now and then. Out-of-towners, y'know. There's a couple of homes for them just upstate. They stay out there awhile, their time comes, they drop 'em off here. I think they kinda… hide them away in the back of the maternity ward. It's all very hush-hush."

Hawkeye studied BJ's face. Again there was that look of distaste that flickered across his features as he described the arrangement, and the sight of it filled him with dread. "Hide them away?" he asked.

BJ swallowed. This whole conversation was making him edgy. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. "Look, this can't be helping. You don't really want to know this."

"Oh, I'd say I want to know this! I'll want to know even more if you tell me I don't!"

Sighing deeply, BJ leaned heavily on the desk. "I don't know much – just snippets I overhear from the nurses about the girls when they come in. They don't let them in the main ward – something about… keeping them separate from the other women. They come in alone, they're not allowed anyone with them, and they're… funny about giving them pain relief." He didn't look up. He didn't dare. He knew only too well that look on Hawkeye's face and he didn't want to see it. "I think… I think they just let them get on with it. One of the nurses said once… I heard her say they were the easiest deliveries in the world. She just leaves the girls upstairs and comes down for a coffee. Goes and checks every now and then."

He risked a glance up. He didn't like the look in his friend's eyes one bit. He suddenly felt horribly, enormously guilty, and the process that he had was so uncomfortably aware of, but had gone unchallenged and unquestioned, snapped into focus.

When Hawkeye spoke, there was a menace in his voice BJ had rarely heard before. "This happens in _your_ hospital?"

"I never said I liked it, Hawkeye. I'm just telling you what I know."

"But you tell me this _now_? You knew this all along and _now_ you let me find out? You didn't think this might be _fucking relevant_?"

"Not judging by her letter, no! You said yourself – Emily made it damned clear she wanted to raise her own kid! Or at least _try_. I didn't believe for a second that _any_ of this could have happened to her!"

Hawkeye shot him a sarcastic smile. "Don't play dumb, Beej. You saw her father. You know what _he_ thought about Emily raising that baby! Don't tell me this didn't cross your mind then!"

BJ wrestled with the idea in his head. Try as he might, he couldn't reconcile what he knew of Lt. Winters with the stories the nurses would tell in the canteen. Emily was mature, capable, calm in a crisis, like all their nurses – and above all she _wanted_ to be a parent. It just didn't make sense. The picture the maternity ward staff painted of the unwed mothers was that they were unfit, immoral, and incapable. BJ had never felt comfortable with the gossip, but he wondered now more than ever how many of them were just like Emily, brave and resilient, more than able to look after a child she desperately wanted to raise, but pushed away by parents and staff alike…

"Okay – fine," BJ admitted. "I didn't _want_ to believe… Look, I said I overheard the nurses, and… they all have the same story about these women – they're young, they're irresponsible, and they don't want the kid! I'm not saying they're right, but I just figured none of that seemed to _fit_ with what we know about Emily!"

Hawkeye nodded, not exactly satisfied with the answer, but pressing on. "And then what? After she's given birth – what then?"

He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "After a few days, the adoption agency takes the baby, and the mother just... goes back to the home, I guess."

Hawkeye's mind raced. He tried – he really tried – not to imagine Emily being whisked away to a strange town full of strange people, forced to deliver her baby with nobody to hold her hand or support her. The date of her discharge echoed in his mind with disturbing significance. How had he spent last Christmas? Warm and content – that was how. He and his father had reached an uneasy truce for the holidays and agreed that they would discuss neither his job nor his drinking, and so for a few wonderful days, things had been as they were before in the Pierce household. He'd been able to relax at his father's house for the first time since returning home, well fed and well loved, and later nicely drunk in front of a fire. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his subconscious kept repeating, ' _I should have been there, I should have been there_ ' and no amount of rationalising about the mail network or forwarding addresses could make it shut up. And then there was BJ – his best friend who had comforted and consoled him and listened to him spill his guts over this – talking about it like it was _normal_. He felt like he was going to throw up all over again.

"The agency… _takes_ the baby? So, what are you saying? She comes in, she has the kid, and then that's it? Goodbye? No cooling off period? No discussion?"

"I don't know the details!" BJ snapped. He felt distinctly uneasy – like he was on trial or something. "I just… see them go sometimes. The mothers. There's never a baby with them. Never."

Hawkeye stared at him. He wondered how many women had been through this – in this hospital alone. And then in every hospital he'd worked at, studied at, or been admitted to himself. He'd dealt with very few deliveries in his training, and, being an intern and a student doctor, his patients were selected carefully by his superiors. He'd never known about this.

He couldn't look at BJ any more. Turning away, he leaned against a filing cabinet and tried to breathe through the nausea. "These… 'homes' you talked about – are there any near Sacramento?"

"Two," BJ replied, extracting a page of notes he'd made from the file he was carrying. "I already called." As he crossed the room he knew Hawkeye wouldn't like what he was about to say. He'd already damaged his trust. "I spoke to the first one about an hour ago – said I was a prospective employer doing a background check and that I wanted to… confirm a rumour." He placed the paper on the filing cabinet, with the name, address and phone number written in neat cursive. "They told me that Emily Winters was a resident between August '53 and February '54. If there's any more information to be found on the baby, it'll be there."

Hawkeye snatched up BJ's notes and turned away from him again. "Great," he muttered, his lip curled into an angry snarl. "I phone the adoption agencies and tell them I'm the father, and I get zip! But _you_ call and explain that you're digging up dirt on Emily's personal life, and they can't do enough to help! How fucked up is that?"

"Oh, Hawk…" BJ reached out awkwardly to console him, but Hawkeye shrugged him off.

"Don't touch me!" His anger was rolling off him in waves. "You were complicit in this! Don't try and comfort me! If Emily had walked into _this hospital_ four months ago and you were on duty, you would have packed her off to the maternity wing and _you_ would have let a stranger walk out of here with our kid! Tell me, _Doctor_ , how many families have you split up?"

The accusation cut deep, and BJ found himself on the defensive before he could stop himself. "Hey, I'm not involved in any of this – I just said that it happened!"

"Since when are you the kind of man who let anything _just happen_? If this was Korea–"

"Since I realised that I don't have a say in it! Since I got a promotion that I'd quite like to _keep_ – something I _needed_ to put food on the table for my wife and kid and pay off the debts we ran up thanks to my lousy army pay-check!"

Hawkeye shook his head, incredulous. "I don't know you anymore. The BJ I knew wouldn't stand by and let people treat other human beings like this. You've gone _soft_."

He spat the word with a furious venom BJ had only seen one before: when he was locked in that cell under Sidney's care.

BJ recoiled. "And you've gone crazy!" The accusation flew out of him before he could stop it, but he knew it was a mistake, even before Hawkeye wheeled on him, eyes wide with a kind of manic rage.

" _Have I_? Just try and tell me you'd still have all _your_ marbles if someone took Erin away from you!"

BJ backed away, giving him space. Of course Hawkeye was angry, and he realised with horror that he must seem like a traitor. He'd been part of the system that was now standing between Hawkeye and his child – a system that had probably stood between many other people and their children, but he'd never before seen the effects. He'd turned away in distaste but he'd never bothered to question it. He wished he had something to offer as an olive branch, but his remaining bargaining chip would do little in that sense. All it did was hammer home the truth of Hawkeye's words.

"There's one more thing." He placed Emily's file on the desk and opened it on the last page.

"I can't _wait_ to hear what that is, because the information you've brought to this conversation so far's made me feel _so much better_!" Hawkeye glowered, tense and shaking.

BJ pressed onward. "Following her return to San Francisco, Emily Winters received a psych evaluation here at the General Hospital, after which she was admitted to the Langley Porter Neuro-Psychiatric Institute for treatment of an acute nervous disorder." He nudged the file in Hawkeye's direction. "That was the last entry – and that was two months ago."

Hawkeye glanced at the proffered file, the words slowly coming into focus against the thin paper. "She broke down," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. His fingers traced over the words, as if he could erase the event from history just by rubbing at the ink. "They took her baby and she broke down."

BJ eyed him, anxious. "Do you want me to call them?"

"I want you to get out."

BJ offered up no argument. His mind swam with unanswered questions, the faces of women he had never bothered to talk to, whose stories he'd never had the time to hear. He'd known the bare bones of the process, and it wasn't his department. He'd stepped aside and let the social workers do their job, assured by everyone around him that the women – or in some cases, girls – were content with the decision. How many of them had been just like Emily? How many times had he been wrong?

He retreated back towards the door. Clearly it was useless pushing Hawkeye any further, so he left without another word, carefully pulling the door closed behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features the historic Langley Porter Neuro-Psychiatric Institute in San Francisco. For period-appropriate images of this location, follow this link: http://1drv.ms/1KMCikz

The office was empty when BJ returned.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. The maps, notes and general mess were still present, one of the sandwiches had a bite or two taken out of it, and there were two empty miniatures on the plate beside it. BJ wondered with some concern whether Hawkeye made a habit of having two mouthfuls of club sandwich and two measures of airline gin for lunch, but given the circumstances he decided to let it slide – once he found him, of course.

He swapped his lab coat for his suit jacket, gathered Hawkeye's scattered research into his arms, and left, hurrying down the stairs to the lobby, much to the bemusement of his colleagues.

Bundling his things into the car, he travelled only a few short blocks before pulling up outside an ominous, blocky white building with bars at the windows. It was easy to find a parking space – clearly there were not many visitors to this place.

He walked up to the front entrance, but before he could start up the concrete steps, a lone figure caught his eye on one of the benches, sat with his head bowed, his elbows resting on his knees. BJ noticed with a grimace of concern that the sleeve of his jacket was torn.

He approached with as casual an attitude as he could manage. "I had a feeling I'd find you here."

Hawk addressed the sidewalk. "Well, it was this or Sacramento, and I really can't stand riding the bus."

"How did you even get here?"

"I took a cab."

"With what? You left all your money in the car this morning."

"I took your wallet, too."

BJ should have been angry, but he was too worried. Then Hawkeye lifted his head to gaze at the front door of the imposing building before them. His cheek was bruised and his nose bloody. Worry turned to dismay and BJ dropped onto the bench beside him. "What happened to you?"

Hawkeye gestured to the psychiatric hospital. "They wouldn't let me in," he explained. "It turns out Emily Winters has a short list of approved visitors, and I'm not on it."

BJ offered him a hanky to clean himself up for the second time in as many days, but it was ignored. "Had a disagreement with the orderlies, huh?"

"I've had worse," Hawkeye shrugged, putting a brave face on, even though said face was covered in blood. "It's my ego that's taken the worst."

"That'll recover," BJ assured him, taking the initiative to dab at Hawkeye's bloody nose himself. "It's a sturdy little fella." As he tended Hawkeye's wounds, words bubbled up inside him. He swallowed them down, fought to put them into some semblance of order, and strung them together again in a way he hoped made sense. "I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you back there. I probably sounded kinda…"

Hawkeye shot him a glare. "You sounded like a jerk." BJ was relieved. That was the first time Hawkeye had looked him in the eye since their argument in his office.

BJ laughed. "I won't argue with that." He scrubbed at a particularly stubborn bit of blood on Hawkeye's upper lip, gently bracing his jaw with his fingers. "And you were right – I was complicit in the system. I never fought it, and I never questioned it. I certainly never thought about any of the people affected by it, and I never once thought one of them would be my best friend."

Hawkeye just stared at him, his glare softening a little. He didn't speak.

"I'm sorry," BJ said again. "I feel like I failed you – and Emily too. All of them."

Hawkeye pondered his words, and then, staring straight ahead, he spoke up. "When I did my internship in Chicago," he began, in hushed tones, like he knew he shouldn't be talking about this, "there was this nurse. All the young doctors had a thing for her. She was amazing, like a movie star. She had the most amazing teeth, I'll always remember that. Her smile was like nothing I'd ever seen, and she was _always_ smiling. I used to pretend to drop stuff in the canteen just to make her laugh so I could see that smile. She was popular, too. Every one of us wanted to date her. She went out with one of the interns for a while. I remember, it was right before finals, but he was always out with her, you know. Nearly flunked his exams for her. And then one day she just disappeared. They told us she was sick, or something. The other nurses used to… gossip about her. They kept saying how she'd 'gone away'. Like, that was a big deal – 'going away'." Glancing up at BJ, his face lined with worry, he asked: "Do you think that's what happened to her?"

Frowning, BJ shrugged. "Could be." His face betrayed a grim certainty that the ambiguity of his words tried to mask. "Hawk, this girl? You didn't…?"

"No, no," Hawkeye shook his head. "God, no, she barely looked at me! But uh… I knew the guy who did – him and his buddies. I used to hear them talk about her when we'd sit together in the cafeteria. They used to laugh and joke. And I'd laugh too, even though…" He paused, shuddering like the memory left a bad taste in this throat. "I was _young_ , you know. I was the new guy; small town kid in a big city. I just wanted to fit in. So I joined in with them, laughing about this girl; laughing at the words and the innuendo, and I never once thought…" He ran his hands over his face, his breath hissing through his fingers as he jostled with his memories. "She came back," he continued, "and she'd…changed. I mean, they told us she was sick, but looking back now, I can tell there was something else. I've seen a lot of sick people since then, and they don't look like that. It was like somebody had just… let all the joy out of her." He shook his head sadly. "She didn't stay long – and all the time she was back with us… she never smiled anymore. Not once. I never once saw her smile."

He dropped his head, pressing his fingers to his temples as a headache – or possibly a hangover from his 'lunch' – began to make its presence known. He closed his eyes, but he couldn't wipe away the image of that woman; the one he had worshipped in his younger years; the one he had laughed about when the other young doctor had boasted and leered, thinking it would help him fit in.

"I can't remember her name," he said. That bugged him. He felt he should know her name.

But her sadness was burned into his memory, the way she stooped when she walked, and stared mutely through the windows during her lunch break. Never smiling, never laughing, no matter how many times Hawkeye dropped his tray in front of her. Did Emily stoop like that now? Was she gazing out of those same windows that Hawkeye now looked up at?

"You can't save everyone, you know," BJ told him gently.

Hawkeye wasn't sure if he was referring to Emily or the girl from Chicago. In his mind's eye, they had become one and the same. "Not with security like that, no," he replied, gesturing to the white monolith in front of them.

BJ sighed. He was at a loss of how to help, and Hawkeye was just lost in every way. "I don't know what to say," he murmured. "I'm sorry things turned out this way, I really am."

"I'm not the one you should feel sorry for," Hawkeye replied with renewed enthusiasm. "I was selfish – I know that now. I came over here wanting a way out. I figured I was offering her the greatest gift in the world – _me._ I thought marrying her was the best thing I could have done, and now… God, I don't want to marry her – I want to _avenge_ her! I want to storm that place – give her back her freedom, give her back her _voice_." He tore at his hair, helpless, raging against himself and the world with no outlet to release his pain. Instead, he settled for staring at the concrete, resting his head in his hands, defeated. "You know," he announced, a slightly mischievous glint in his eye as he looked up at BJ, "Trapper and I broke into a liquor store in Seoul, once. He gave me a boost; I shimmied in through the back window."

"I'm surprised you didn't get arrested."

"We did. But we bribed the police with the booze we stole so we got away with it."

It was a funny story, but BJ didn't laugh. He knew where Hawkeye's brain was going. "You're not breaking into a hospital, Hawk. You can't bribe the orderlies with booze, or anything else. And I'm sure as hell not boosting you through any windows."

Hawkeye chuckled humourlessly. "Spoil-sport."

BJ offered no comeback, because there was no argument. But Hawkeye didn't give up easily.

"Maybe if I could sneak round the perimeter a few times. If she saw me through the window or something she could tell them who I was – tell them I was outside. Then they–"

"And then," BJ explained gently, "they'd put in her notes that she was hallucinating or delusional or something, and put her on anti-psychotics."

The exasperated look on Hawkeye's face spoke volumes. He got to his feet, pacing, animated and restless. "God! This is impossible! Whose ass do I have to kiss just to _talk_ to her?"

"Well," BJ explained, quoting medical law which Hawkeye was probably well aware of himself, "normally with psych cases, the legal responsibility comes down to their guardian or next of kin. In other words…"

"Her _dad_ ," Hawkeye sneered, a bitter smile on his face. He shook his head, not quite believing the irony of his earlier statement to Mr Winters: ' _You have no legal right_.'

"Your best friend in all of California!" BJ said with a similar sarcastic smile.

Hawkeye sniffed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Do you… uh, do you know anyone in this hospital, Beej?" He jerked his head towards the building.

The question didn't come out as innocently as he'd hoped, and the look BJ gave him was a clear indicator that the words he was about to say would probably be met with the contempt they deserved. Hawkeye sat beside him, leaning in, conspiring.

"See, I was just thinking, if you _knew_ someone who worked here…" He spoke with growing agitation, his voice become louder, more manic. "… or if we could _find_ someone who worked here – another doctor, someone with authority – then they could add me on the approved list on the file and I could go talk to her! Winters would never know!"

"Hawk, stop…"

"Or they could authorise me to visit as her personal physician! Or _Sidney_! They could put Sidney down as one of her psychiatrists! He goes in, tells her that I'm here, does… whatever it is Sidney does to work those miracles he does all the time, and gets her out! All we need is someone to do the paperwork!"

"You mean someone to _falsify medical documents_?"

Hawkeye paused, his face falling. "Well, if you put it like _that_ of course it sounds crazy."

Shaking his head sadly, BJ wished someone else could be the sensible one. In a world where cause and effect no longer governed the world, he'd agree in a heartbeat. He wished he could be the one to say 'yes' to some of these plans; wished he could be Trapper for once, and boost Hawkeye through a window into the hospital. He'd be the one handing out the booze to the orderlies himself if he thought it would do any good. But it wouldn't. "Listen to what you're saying! We'd never pull that off! Do you know what the penalty would be for even _asking_? We could get fired; we could lose our licences; we could go to jail! I know you wanna do anything you could for this woman right now, but goddamn it, there are _consequences_!"

"You think I don't know that? I've been dealing with _consequences_ since before I even got back in this lousy country! Go ahead and give me consequences! Things sure as hell can't get any worse!"

"Are you kidding me? You'd be risking your livelihood, your career, your whole _life_! Arrest, court, _prison_! You wanna put your medical licence in the line? Sidney's? _Mine_? And all for what? A hell's chance at a plan that you know as well as I do _won't work_!"

Hawkeye looked away. He knew he was asking too much. He knew it was futile.

"I get why you're clutching at straws, I really do. And believe me, if I thought there was any way I could help her, I'd do it. But this isn't the way. This isn't Korea, Hawk. We can't buck the system here, because here – in this world, in this country – we _are_ the system."

There was no reply. BJ put his hand gently on Hawkeye's shoulder. He felt the world weary sigh that built in Hawkeye's lungs before he heard it escape him. Then the man slipped out from under his grasp and stood to walk away. "Well, maybe I don't want to be part of the system anymore."

"Hawkeye, wait." BJ's words had more determination in them than his tone. "Look, we'll… we'll write some letters; see if we can't get someone else to assess her condition! _Maybe_ someone will let you in!" He knew how weak it sounded. If Hawkeye was clutching at straws with his own outrageous plans, now he was, too, with his feeble attempts to toe the line. He didn't even believe it himself. "Hawkeye!" At last, his friend turned back, and this time he didn't bother to placate him with unlikely plans or false hope. "Before you quit, there's one more place we've gotta look. I can't get you in to see Emily, but there's something we can do. If you can face it, that is."

Hawkeye thought about it. His brow furrowed and he worried at his bottom lip for a moment. "Sacramento," he murmured.

"It's our only other lead. We've got nothing else."

Shuffling his feet and shoving his hands in his pockets, Hawkeye stared into the middle distance. The journey was daunting, not because of the distance but because of the _emotional_ mileage. It was their last stand – the last beacon of hope Hawkeye had in finding the child that the legal system had tried so desperately to hide from him. What if it was all futile? He'd been kicked to the kerb so many times these past two days, he was starting to feel like road-kill. But then, what if it _wasn't_? Maybe he couldn't take the disappointment, but he certainly couldn't take the idea of not trying. At last, with a weary sigh, he made the call. "Sure, why not? I've only got thrown out of two places. Why not make it a triple?"

"That's the spirit," BJ replied, getting to his feet and plastering a smile on his face.

"No, it's not," Hawkeye muttered as he was led over to the car. "I have no spirit left. I'm all spirited out. This has nothing to do with spirit anymore."

BJ opened the car door for him, leaning on the frame as Hawkeye dragged his weary self after his friend. "What is it then?"

Hawkeye looked him in the eye, his expression empty and mournful – beaten, even. Then he looked away, up to the impenetrable white concrete fortress that had stood, unrelenting, between him and the mother of his child. He forced a smile. "Closure."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features the former Fairhaven Home For Girls, situated in Tahoe Park, Sacramento, now a retirement home. For images of this location, follow this link: http://1drv.ms/1GyPhU0

The drive was long and quiet. Hawkeye slumped silently in his seat, staring out of the window as BJ paid far more attention to the straight, empty freeway than was strictly necessary. As the car rumbled along the tarmac, it occurred to Hawkeye that this was probably exactly the same route that Emily had taken to get out here back in August. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It was an eerie, thought, but not one that was entirely unpleasant. Not quite that of someone walking over his grave, but maybe that of walking over someone else's and getting chills on their behalf. He was following the path of a living ghost.

Gradually, sprawling city suburbs gave way to towns, which in turn faded to fields and farms, and they found themselves in open countryside. It was quite beautiful.

Would it have looked that much different in the late summer? Hawkeye tried to picture the fields lush with crops, ready for harvest. What would Emily have seen from her window as she travelled this road? Would she have seen anything at all? They probably crept out to the car in the darkness and driven up in the dead of night, judging by what BJ had said.

August. Where had Hawkeye been in August? He'd spent that first couple of months of unemployment lollygagging around his apartment while his father tried to persuade him to pull himself together. He'd started by doing a few shifts at the family practice, but being around people all day and having to act… well, _normal_ was too much. The stress got to him and he'd carried on drinking, just like he had in Korea. By the Fall, he was a part-time doctor, part-time alcoholic. His father had slipped an AA leaflet into his in-tray one afternoon. Hawkeye had binned it and started hiding his empties better.

Once they hit Sacramento, BJ prodded Hawkeye out of his reminiscence and got him to navigate. The address, and Hawkeye's dubious skills with a map, eventually got them to Tahoe Park, a spacious, and pleasantly green area of Sacramento just off the Lincoln Freeway.

At last, they pulled over at the side of 63rd Street, in a non-descript patch of suburbia.

"Is this it?" Hawkeye asked.

"Four-five-zero-zero," BJ read off the mail box, double checking the address on his notes.

Squinting through the foliage, Hawkeye could just about make out a building, set back from the road, hidden behind a high hedge and an enormous, looming oak tree. "Oh yeah," he muttered, and the haunted feeling he'd gotten back on the freeway kicked itself up a notch.

Getting out of the car, he suddenly remembered the tear in his jacket, and took it off, folding it over his arm in such a way that the damage was suitably concealed. The evening chill struck him through his thin cotton shirt with unexpected crispness. The sun was deceptive. Hawkeye cast a glance upwards: the sky above them was still blue, and it stretched out forever. They'd only been on the road a couple of hours, but suburban Sacramento felt a world away from the bustling metropolis of San Francisco and the rocky hills of Mill Valley. Everything about this place was flat: the buildings, the land. Acre after acre of low, sprawling homes and straight, unwavering roads stretched out in every direction. Hawkeye shivered.

"Do you want your coat?" BJ asked him, gesturing to the beige trench coat Hawkeye had abandoned in the car that morning.

"No," Hawkeye replied with another tremor. He shoved his hands in his pockets and slammed the door with his hip.

They walked together up to the front gate – a steel barred effort with an archway of the same material, across which several letters had been moulded, spelling 'FAIR HAVEN'. They both noticed it, and Hawkeye gave BJ a knowing look. "Cute!"

The gravel path crunched under their feet, announcing their arrival to anyone who may have been listening, but if anyone was, they didn't see fit to make themselves known in return. Looking up, Hawkeye was met with a long, low building. Two rows of small, dark windows – a dozen each, top and bottom – ran the length of it, with a neat little porch stuck on the front like an afterthought. The doorway was all crisp white paintwork with concrete steps leading up. There were pansies set in the planters, pretty bursts of colour in between benches that nobody sat on, and above them, an American flag hung limply from a flagpole on the lawn, sad and still in the breezeless air.

At the foot of the steps, Hawkeye was struck once again by the awful feeling that he was walking in Emily's footsteps. Had she lingered here, as he did now, or had she strode inside with her head high, refusing to let the situation drag her down? Hawkeye hoped it was the latter. Faltering, he reached out, wrapping his fingers around BJ's sleeve like a small child seeking comfort. BJ looked back at him. "Come on, you can do this."

Still Hawkeye held back.

Turning to face him and lowering his voice, BJ grasped his shoulders and whispered, "Come on, Hawk! You got this far. Don't back out now. Think about what Emily went through, huh? The least you can do is make it through the damned _door_!" His words were harsh, but his tone soft. It hurt him to speak to his friend like this but he knew Hawkeye would hate himself if he turned away at the last hurdle.

"It's not that." Hawkeye's voice was weak. "It's just… this is the end of the line. Unless we hit a _really_ unlikely jackpot – like if someone here takes a shine to me and decides to help us out – once this is over, I'm walking away with nothing."

BJ didn't have the heart to deny that Hawkeye was probably right, so instead he clung to the tiniest hope, and he tried – he really, desperately tried – to put himself in Hawkeye's shoes. "It's worth a shot, though – right? I mean come on – we drove all the way out here!" BJ gestured to the daunting stucco monolith that stood behind him, glinting in the California sun. "Look, I can't begin to understand what you're going through, but all I know is this: if someone took Erin from me, I'd have chased down every lead I could get a sniff of if there was even a _chance_ of getting her back. Come on, Hawk. You're a _parent_! I _know_ you want to do this!"

"Am I?" Hawkeye stared at him. "I don't feel like one. I mean what have I done so far? I failed to ingratiate myself to my would-be in-laws, I got thrown out of the psychiatric hospital, and last night I drank myself to unconsciousness because I couldn't handle the pressure! I'm not a father. Let's face it, my entire contribution to this mess clocks in at one drunken tumble behind the chopper pad and one army-issue prophylactic with a hole in it! Those things don't make me a father – they make me a sleazy lothario with a case of bad luck!"

"Are you seriously telling me you want to _give up_? After we came all this way? We're standing on the doorstep and you just _quit_?"

Hawkeye looked frantic, glancing about himself for an explanation for the mess of emotion that had swept over him. "Is that so bad? The kid's got a home – they've sorted that! Emily got locked up for all of _her_ optimism – so that's one parent down. I may as well check out too." He ducked his head, staring at his shoes. He didn't want to see BJ's disappointment in him.

Sighing, BJ clasped Hawkeye's hands in his own, reliving every time he'd ever had to haul his friend through a breakdown. He'd lost count of them, and even now, back on home soil, with no shells or gunfire, or mutilated bodies waiting on stretchers. It was like Hawkeye's own personal war had never ended. "You're not quitting," BJ said gently. "You're _angry_. As long as you're angry, there's still some fire in you, and you'll fight 'til you've got nothing left to give. I know it's what you want to do, because it's what _I'd_ do for Erin. I'd tear down walls with my bare hands to get to my child, and I know you would too. And if you walk away now, all that anger's gonna go someplace else, and I don't think I wanna see what might happen if it does."

"I just… can't see how there's gonna be a happy ending for me. I really can't. You were right, Beej – I invested too much, and now I don't know if I'm ready for it to be over."

"So, what's the alternative? You run away and spend the rest of your life wondering? Torture yourself with possibilities and maybes and what ifs for a few weeks, and _then_ see if it's any easier? Because it won't be. We could drive out here every weekend for a decade and you'll never feel ready. There's never a good time for bad news. You're a doctor – you know this – but you _have_ to see this through. You're here now, you made it this far, and there are _answers_ in that building! You owe it to Emily. You owe it to _yourself._ And you owe it to your child."

Hawkeye lifted his head. Tears glinted in his eyes as he looked up at the building, with its neat little windows and its nauseating flowers. "What if the answer's 'no'?"

"Then the answer's 'no', but you may as well find out now."

Hawkeye frowned. He stared at the steps for a moment or two, feeling for all the world like he was standing at the foot of Everest. Looking up, he shot BJ a weak smile, and with some effort, turned it into one of his trademark smirks. "Why do you have to be so…"

"Sensible?" BJ offered.

" _Right_." Hawkeye corrected him. "You've logicked me into submission, you jerk."

BJ beamed with pride. "Come on then!"

Spurring himself on, Hawkeye made it up the steps ahead of his friend. The door was locked, but a shiny brass doorbell graced the frame on the left hand side. Hawkeye pressed it, and gave BJ a look that said 'look how proactive and brave I'm being'. Inside, he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

The door opened, and a young girl blinked out at them. "Yes?"

Hawkeye swallowed and tried to remember how to form sentences. "Uh… hi." That, he thought, was not a sentence. "I'm Doctor Pierce, and I was wondering–"

"Visitors check in at reception," the girl told him in a meek voice. She stood back from the door to let them pass. They stepped inside and she directed them to a large wooden structure not unlike the ticket sales booths at a major railway station. Frosted glass separated them from the office beyond, and a small window allowed visitors to converse with the staff.

"Thanks," Hawkeye said to the girl. He gave her a warm smile. She looked like she needed it.

She couldn't have been more than fifteen. She was heavily pregnant and carrying a mop, a pail of water at her feet. A floral pinafore hung loosely over her clothes, its short straps no longer able to be buttoned over her bump. Wordlessly, she moved the mop over the patch of tiled floor where the men had walked, clearing the evidence of their grubby footprints.

"Sorry about your floor," BJ said.

She stared back at him blankly. "'S alright." With visible effort, but with almost nervous haste, she hauled her pail of water off the linoleum and struggled away, off down a side corridor. Hawkeye winced on her behalf. He shot BJ a look somewhere between pity and rage. Was this how they treated the girls here? Was Emily subjected to this kind of servitude during her stay?

"Don't go there." BJ seemed to read his mind as he rang the bell at the window.

"I'm already there," Hawkeye replied with a bitter smile. "The scenery's nice but the people are assholes."

"Hawk…"

The window opened with a creak and a rattle, and a young woman peeked out at them from the office. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Probably not, but I'm a glutton for punishment." Hawkeye smiled warmly and shook her hand through the little hatch. "My name's Doctor Benjamin Franklin Pierce, and I'm here about one of your girls."

"A doctor?" She gave him a puzzled look. "For one of the girls? Did somebody call you?"

"Oh no, no," Hawkeye reassured her. "Nobody called me. I'm here for… uh, personal reasons."

The puzzled clerk continued to look at him, waiting for a further explanation.

"You had a resident here – a Miss Emily Winters – checked in around August last year, left February just gone. See, she sent me a letter a while back, but I haven't been able to…" He trailed off, and tried again. "I have reason to believe…" No, that wasn't quite right either. He took a deep breath. "I'm the father," he stated at last, without a shred of hesitation in his voice.

The young woman stared at him for a moment, as if she recognised him. "You're Hawkeye."

Now it was Hawkeye's turn to stare. "You know me?"

"She talked about you." Her voice was soft, her tone warm.

Hawkeye wanted desperately to ask her for details, but those four little words were enough of an insight to set his heart soaring. But he had a dreadful feeling that if he let it out of its cage, it would only get broken, so instead, he shot BJ a playful smirk – one that covered a genuine, delighted smile. "My reputation precedes me."

"Apparently." BJ returned his smile with a slightly forced one of his own. He knew this side of his friend was only masking an intense vulnerability, and it probably wasn't about to do him any favours.

"They're not supposed to," the office girl explained quietly, "but Emily was older, so she rebelled at first." Her tone showed admiration, but the words 'at first' did an excellent job of stamping out the embers of hope it had kindled in Hawkeye's spirit. "Fathers are strictly off-limits for the girls, by the supervisor's orders."

"Oh, I'm off-limits. That's good to know. Why break the habits of a lifetime?"

Regarding him with a curious look, the woman nudged a visitors' book across her little desk. "She likes things done a certain way, and rule number one is no contact with the baby's father. No talking about, no letters, no phone calls, and definitely no visits." Maybe it was Hawkeye's hopeful imagination, but her matter-of-fact spiel seemed to have something of an apology to it. But clearly she could say nothing further on the subject and handed Hawkeye a pen. "I'll have to ask you to sign in," she said, in something that approached an official tone. "I'll go fetch the supervisor."

"Please do. Ask her to be gentle with me."

The girl vanished from her little window, disappearing out of the back of the office to fetch the supervisor – the woman of whom she had already painted a formidable picture.

Hawkeye had visions of Margaret, circa 1951, appearing in a civilian uniform and screeching at him for fooling around with the nurses. He laughed for a moment, and glanced at BJ. "Major Houlihan, please report to reception. Doctor Pierce needs his afternoon spanking."

BJ rolled his eyes as he signed his name. "Quit horsing around."

"I can give you horsing around, or I can give you bolting like a terrified mule."

"Okay, I'll take the horsing around. Just… try and talk like a normal human being once we get in, hmm?"

"Impressions were never my forte. I can do Groucho, but that's it."

"Do yourself a favour: expand your repertoire." BJ signed Hawkeye's name for him and dropped the pen on the desk.

As he did so, the double doors at the far end of the lobby swung open, and a stout, diminutive woman stepped through. She was short, round and smiling, quite the opposite of the stern woman Hawkeye had imagined. "I believe someone requires my assistance? I'm Harriet Gladstone – Miss. I'm the senior social worker in this establishment." She spoke with a lilting Southern drawl, soft and soothing. Her wide, kindly eyes danced between the two of them, curious, her smile never fading. "Which one of you gentlemen is Doctor Pierce?"

"That's me," Hawkeye replied, extending a hand to her. "I hope you don't mind, I brought a friend."

"I understand entirely," she sympathised, taking his hand and clasping it in her own for a moment. "If you wouldn't mind, though, let's head round to my office. It's probably best we don't expose the girls to such a… delicate conversation. This way."

She beckoned them off down a corridor. Hawkeye and BJ followed obediently, holding back a little and walking side by side, noting the closed doors and occasional, barely detectible, sounds of hushed female voices, sometimes even giggling. But the mothers were otherwise invisible.

At last they reached the office, the door was opened and she led them inside. "Please, take a seat," Miss Gladstone instructed them, gesturing to the comfortable, if humble, furnishings.

The office was small and bare – dull magnolia walls and glossy magnolia woodwork. A small window looked out onto an enclosed courtyard, and in the distance, Hawkeye could see one lone figure making slow, halting progress around its perimeter.

They sat as instructed, Hawkeye in front of the desk, BJ just off to his right. Miss Gladstone closed the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Hawkeye watched as the prim, portly social worker took her seat behind her desk, flanked at either side by two identical dark olive filing cabinets, each topped with a potted plant: yellow marigolds on one side, a spider plant on the other. Sitting down, she seemed to gain six inches in height. "So," she gave them another one of her trademark beaming smiles, "what is it that I can help you gentlemen with?"

"I guess that really depends on you," Hawkeye replied, with a smile of his own. It was a smile he dredged up from his boots, hauled past hulking orderlies and snippy agency clerks and one sneering, disapproving old patriarch, and finally plastered onto his face with great difficulty. "Not that I want to start off on the wrong foot or anything, but I've spoken to a lot of people at a lot of different organisations today, and so far nobody's been much help."

"You have to understand, Doctor, a lot of this information is confidential. The service we provide promises the utmost security and discretion to our residents, their families and the adoptive families. I can't break that contract, no matter who you say you are."

"Confidential?" It was BJ who piped up before Hawkeye could inject his usual venom. "When I called your number pretending I was some nosy employer hiring Emily Winters, someone here told me she'd been a resident, no questions asked! How is that 'confidential'?"

Miss Gladstone shot BJ a slightly suspicious look. "What did you say your name was again, sir?"

"I didn't." BJ smiled back.

"Obviously, there are exceptions," Miss Gladstone breezed. "Concerned parties, such as employers, are always at liberty to know who they're hiring."

"I don't get why it's anyone's concern." Hawkeye's calm demeanour was cracking again.

She regarded him with a stern expression and exhaled loudly through her prim little nostrils. "Well, look at it this way," she said. "If you were hiring someone, wouldn't you want to have a fair idea of that person's… moral fibre?

"Of course I would, that's what criminal records are for! But the last time I checked there was nothing criminal about having a baby!"

"I said 'moral', not 'legal'."

"Obviously we have different definitions of what constitutes 'morality'."

Another polite, if slightly curt, smile. Hawkeye wondered if she had some kind of tic. "Obviously."

He was spared further philosophical debate by the timid knock, and a moment later the entrance of, the clerk from the lobby – Hawkeye hadn't caught her name. "The Winters file," she announced, passing a brown manila file to her boss.

Hawkeye's heart leapt into his mouth. It was hard to process that everything he wished to know was, most likely, contained in that slim folder. This wasn't like the medical file BJ had found at San Francisco General, which conveniently omitted the slightest word about her pregnancy and the birth of their child. Here, it was actually acknowledged. It took every ounce of self-control not to leap across the desk and wrestle the paperwork from the woman's hands.

The clerk shot Hawkeye a sympathetic glance and slipped out again, pulling the door closed behind her.

Miss Gladstone perused the file, sliding a gold plated fountain pen down the pages and making feint clicking sounds with her tongue as the contemplated the contents.

"Can I take a look?" Hawkeye asked, clutching at straws.

"I'm sorry, Doctor – residents' files are confidential."

Hawkeye shuddered. There was that word again. Sitting back, the stern-faced social worker tilted the folder upwards a little further so Hawkeye couldn't catch even a glimpse of the contents. Her eyes danced fleetingly across words Hawkeye would have given anything to read. His fingers clasped around the edge of the desk, he inched closer. His knuckles went white. "But I'm the father."

With a slightly exasperated sigh, Miss Gladstone flipped a page in the notes. "Father unknown," she announced matter-of-factly.

Hawkeye blanched. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Miss Gladstone explained patiently, "that either she didn't know or she didn't want to say. Either way, you're not named on the birth certificate, or anywhere on our papers. I'm sorry, dear. There's no mention of you at all."

Those words felt like a knife in Hawkeye's gut. Suddenly, he remembered Emily's promise in her letter: 'I won't name you', and he realised with those awful words that Emily had kept her promise She had protected him. She had kept his name off the records, just like she'd said she would. Horrified, he curled in on himself a little, rocking slightly on his chair. "So what can you tell me?" he asked, his voice tight. "You said you wanted to help! You must be able to give me something!"

"I can really only tell you the basics," she sympathised kindly, "and I am already taking a lot on faith here that you are who you say you are." She scanned through the file again. "The child was placed in foster care on December 28th following a brief stay in the maternity ward at Sacramento General."

"Foster care?" Hawkeye suddenly perked up. "That's temporary, right? That's like a…. halfway thing? That's not adoption!"

"Just a moment, Doctor Pierce!" she berated him, waving her pen at him. "After foster care, the child was indeed adopted out on…" She clicked her tongue again as she scanned the columns of information. "… February 22nd."

Hawkeye broke into a cold sweat. "February 22nd," he murmured. "That's less than a week after I got the letter." His world shattered. He ran through everything he had done in the past two months since that letter had landed on his front porch and turned his life upside down. He remembered how he had procrastinated and agonised over what to do. So many drafts that were screwed up and tossed in the trash. And when eventually he'd written back, he'd waited and waited for a reply that never came. He'd written again, this time more urgently, begging her to contact him. And then he'd waited some more. It had taken a long, eight weeks of waiting and writing and soul searching for him to drag himself out to California.

But it had only taken two days of detective work for him to wind up here, sat at the very desk where Emily had signed the papers. "If I'd got on a plane as soon as I got that letter," he said aloud, "she wouldn't have had to…"

He tried to compose himself. He pushed back the wave of 'if onlys' and 'what ifs' and steeled himself to play his last card. "Mrs Gladstone…" he addressed her formally.

"Miss!"

"Sorry! Miss Gladstone, I have reason to believe Miss Winters signed that adoption form under duress."

Closing the file, Miss Gladstone eyed him dubiously. "That's quite a claim, Doctor," she professed, frowning at him. "What makes you say that?"

"See, I met her father yesterday and he… uh… well, he was a little… let's just say he didn't approve, and he was very… expressive in his disapproval."

"I can't say I'm surprised. His daughter–"

"No – I mean, he was… forceful."

"Threatening, even," BJ chipped in.

"That's right." Hawkeye nodded. "The man was a bully! I don't think Emily wanted to give up that baby. I think he made her sign that paper."

Miss Gladstone was patient, rolling her fountain pen between her perfectly manicured fingers as she watched Hawkeye protest. "I understand your concern," she said airily, "but regardless of your opinion of the man, he made the right call encouraging his daughter to sign the surrender. Single motherhood is no life for an intelligent girl like Emily. She's got her whole life ahead of her. It was the best thing she could have done."

"The best thing she could have done?!" Hawkeye repeated, incredulous. "That intelligent girl is in a mental institute right now because of 'the best thing she could have done'!"

"Oh come now!" the social worker sniffed, looking down her nose at him. "You can't know that has anything to do with–"

"No, but I can take an educated guess! What I do know is that the woman who wrote to me ten months ago was happy to be expecting a baby! And since I got out here, not a single person has uttered a word to me about what Emily wanted. Oh sure, I've heard a lot about 'the right decision' and 'the best thing to do' but nothing about what her decision was. Not a mention of the thing she wanted to do!"

"What call was there to make?" Miss Gladstone asked, her tone overwhelmingly innocuous. "She was a single mother, no husband, no job – you were notably absent!"

"Well, I'm here now! Look, I'm here and I'm sorry it took so long, but this is my child we're talking about – somewhere out there, being brought up by strangers! How hard can this be? It's paperwork for god's sake! Whatever you've done, reverse it!"

The stout little woman stared at him, perplexed, like he was mad. "Sir, do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?"

"I'm asking for a chance to be able to raise my own child! The chance you never gave her!"

Narrowing her eyes, Miss Gladstone inhaled deeply and sat forward, folding her arms across her chest. "Doctor Pierce," she said sternly, looking at him with disdain, "do you drink?"

Hawkeye closed his mouth and pulled away. Suddenly he was right back in his apartment in Maine, his father looking on in concern as he stumbled about the kitchen trying to make coffee, an empty bottle of Scotch on the counter as a testimony to his guilt. He tried, as he had then, to think up an explanation that didn't sound desperate. He knew he had none to give.

With an exasperated sigh, Miss Gladstone pushed the file to one side. "I don't think you fully appreciate our side of things. We are talking about legally binding contracts. Miss Winters signed the surrender herself, and I can't reverse that without a court order. And on top of that, there were the costs of her stay here, the hospital visit, the foster care. All this has to be paid for. Our costs are covered by the adoption fee – without that, the bill would have to be met by Miss Winters herself."

"I'll pay it," Hawkeye volunteered. "Whatever it is, I'll cover it. Tell the adoption agency… something. Tell them new evidence came to light and I want to… uh, what's the word? I want to… contest the surrender!" He slammed his hand down on the desk, decisive, high on adrenaline.

Miss Gladstone gazed at him, calm, almost bored. "But you're not on the birth certificate."

"So put me on the damned birth certificate!" He scrambled to his feet, and with shaking hands, he managed to fumble Emily's letter out of his pocket and thrust it towards the social worker. "Look, this is what she sent me last summer. There's your proof."

Gently pushing the proffered note away, Miss Gladstone shook her head sadly. "Birth certificates are sealed at the hospital," she explained gently. "I can't just add your name after the fact. I'm sorry, Doctor, but in the eyes of the law, you have no ties to this child whatsoever. I can't just tear apart a new family on your say so. These people have been waiting months to adopt! They're very happy, and your child is lucky to have them as parents. Why would you want to spoil that?"

Hawkeye shot BJ a desperate look. He could feel his chance at finally getting to see his child slowly slipping away. All the arguing and all the legal jargon in the world couldn't stop it. They'd both known coming in here that this would probably be the answer, but it didn't make it any easier.

"Look," Miss Gladstone continued, standing and moving around the desk, putting a reassuring hand on his arm, "I know it doesn't seem it, but it really is for the best. What were you thinking of doing? Coming out here, giving up your job, marrying this poor girl? You said it yourself – she's in a mental institution. Now, who would want to marry a… well, you know."

She laughed – a light, frivolous twittering sound. Hawkeye mimicked the noise perfectly in a hollow baritone with a bitter sneer as he continued to look at BJ in helpless despair. "Yeah, who would, right?" BJ cringed on his behalf, shaking his head.

"And without her… well, you'd have been on your own. What kind of life is that for a young man?" She took his hands and gave one a gentle pat as she perched herself on the edge of her desk. Hawkeye found himself following her lead and sitting beside her.

"I could've coped," he said weakly. "My dad raised me on his own – after my mom died – and he did okay."

"Then you must know how hard it is!" Her voice was imploring; tender; almost heartfelt. "Wouldn't you have loved to have had a mother around to cook you dinners and kiss you goodnight when you were little?"

Hawkeye bristled. "My dad did those things."

"It's not the same though, is it?" the social worker murmured. She squeezed his hand. "Not to mention what your child would have to face out there in society. The world can be cruel, Doctor Pierce. Your child would most likely be rejected by others; bullied for being illegitimate; called a bastard. Is that what you want? I don't doubt for a moment that you meant it for the best, but why put a child through that same difficulty just for the sake of your own feelings? I don't believe you fully understand what you'd be taking on here. Look at you – you have a stressful job, you're a drinker, and you're behaving very… irrationally. Believe me when I tell you that this child is receiving the best possible care, in a home with two wonderful parents – far more than you could have offered. Just think of what you would have faced as a single father! You're a doctor – that's a lot of hours to be away from home! What kind of life would that have been for a child?"

"I guess…" When had she started talking in the past tense? Hawkeye couldn't remember.

"And who would have picked up the slack while you were out earning, hmm? Your father? After he raised you all by his lonesome? Would you really want to lay all that on his shoulders?"

Hawkeye couldn't even contemplate that. His father's disappointment already weighed heavily on him. He saw that expression every time he dragged himself into work twenty minutes late. He had watched a little more of the pride drain from Daniel's face every time he had to pick his errant son up from some bar at two in the morning. He hadn't even told him the real reason he'd come to California; he just couldn't face letting him down again. He couldn't bear to see the look in his eyes when he broke the news that his son – his clever, educated son – had got a girl in trouble.

"Look at me," Miss Gladstone instructed him. Hawkeye looked. He didn't have the will to fight any more. Her sweet, imploring gaze went straight through him. "I realise this hurts, I really do, but you'll move on. You're a good-looking man, you have a good career – you'll find another girl, get married, have other children. This is just one little mistake, and you're letting yourself get all upset over nothing."

"But I…"

She hushed him gently, rubbing at his upper arms like she was comforting a distraught toddler who'd lost a favourite toy. Hawkeye stopped arguing. His head dropped and as he relaxed into her comforting, reassuring little touches, he knew his fight was gone. He couldn't keep going. The spirit that Emily's father had failed to destroy with threats and harsh words, Miss Gladstone now quietly snuffed out with kind ones, and he knew at that moment that it wasn't her father who had broken Emily's spirit. Tears welled up and he let them fall, his shoulders trembling. He wept silently, and as he did, Miss Gladstone stepped back and nodded to BJ, who had watched, mortified, from the corner as they had received the exact same news he had anticipated. Somehow, knowing in advance hadn't made it any easier. As if in a daze, BJ did as the social worker instructed him. He got to his feet, crossed the room and held his friend gently as he wept. There were no words he could offer.

"He'll be fine," the Miss Gladstone assured BJ, as Hawkeye disintegrated in his arms. "They always are."

Sniffing, Hawkeye wiped his eyes on his sleeve and looked up.

Miss Gladstone smiled at him once more, and opened the office door. "I think we're all done here," she declared in her light and airy tone. "If you wouldn't mind?"

Staring at BJ in shocked, helpless surrender, Hawkeye found himself frozen in place. BJ gathered up his jacket for him and gave him a gentle tug. "Come on," he whispered.

Hawkeye allowed himself to be coaxed off the desk. He glanced around the little room one more time. While some part of him never wanted to remember this place as long as he lived, another, somewhat masochistic part wanted to stamp its memory on his heart forever. He glanced up to the window again. The woman in the courtyard was beginning another lap of the gravel path. Suddenly Hawkeye felt he was invading her privacy, and looked away. His gaze fell instead on the marigolds on Miss Gladstone's filing cabinet, and he noticed for the first time that they were fake.

"Doctor Pierce?"

Hawkeye looked at her.

"I'm really very busy."

They left without further word, Miss Gladstone clutching the file under her arm. They followed her once more through the winding corridors of Fairhaven, her heels clicking on the polished tiles. Once again, Hawkeye could hear the hushed whispers of the invisible women these walls hid from the world, only this time, as they passed though the heavy double doors into the lobby, somewhere in the depths of the building, as the doors banged closed behind them, he could hear someone screaming.


	8. Chapter 8

Miss Gladstone rapped on the office window, and the sound went right through Hawkeye's skull as he lingered nearby, trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. The office clerk opened the window and peered out. "Put this back in the closed cases cabinet," she was told, as her supervisor placed Emily's file on the counter. "Doctor Pierce is leaving."

In his mind's eye, Hawkeye saw himself protest that actually, no, Doctor Pierce wasn't leaving. Doctor Pierce wanted to cling to the doorframe, scream at them not to let this happen. Instead, he shook the social worker's hand and thanked her for all her help before turning away. He walked as if in a dream, staring at the red and grey chequered floor as his feet moved across it, one in front of the other, BJ nudging him along with every step.

The exit grew nearer, and the closer he got, the more Hawkeye lagged. For all the trepidation he'd felt when he'd started this journey – all the hesitating and procrastinating he'd done back when he first got that letter – it was nothing compared to the reluctance with which he now ended it.

The door opened, and the chill evening air rushed to meet him. He hesitated on the threshold, his toes butting up against the brass bar that divided polished tiles from cold, white concrete. BJ glanced back at him with more than a little concern. "Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye inhaled; a long, deep, breath that did little to fill the void in his chest. Then he let it go, releasing a weary, shaking sigh that seemed to resonate from his very core. He stepped outside. The door swung closed behind them, the latch clicking into place.

The outside world felt strange. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. After the stillness of those quiet corridors, he had been expecting the freshness and the noise of the outside to stir his spirits, but for the first time in his life, it all seemed so… dead. A car rolled past along the street on the other side of the hedges, and Hawkeye watched it, oddly transfixed.

"Are you okay?" BJ asked him. It was a dumb question. He knew it was, but there was nothing else he could ask.

Hawkeye wondered if he was crying again. He felt like he should be. He raised a hand to his cheek and was surprised when his fingers came away dry. A numbness had set in, like his body wasn't really in his control anymore, and he had to check to see what it was doing in his absence.

He wanted to hate the people who had done this. He wanted to hate Miss Gladstone, with her plastic marigolds and her charming, pitying smiles; and Mr Winters, with his nice house and his nasty temper; even the kindly clerk who had listened to Emily enough to know Hawkeye's name, but done nothing to reconnect the pair of them. He wanted so desperately to blame them, but the only person he hated was himself. He'd done this to her. Who was he trying to fool? He had no right to call himself a father. No right at all. He had no right even to grieve, as he knew whatever he was feeling, no matter how painful, must be a mere fraction of what she had gone through, after carrying their child for nine months. The grief and the mourning were hers; the guilt was his.

"You know," he muttered, staring at his hand, wondering where his tears had gone, "all day I've been wondering what it was these people said or did to make Emily give up the best thing that came out of Korea." He glanced at BJ, his eyes sorrowful but dry – oh, so painfully dry. "Now I know." He stared out into the distance, across acres and acres of flat, Sacramento suburbia. All those people in their cute little houses, living their cute little lives, with their cute little families. "And the worst part is," he continued, his voice trembling with emotion that he couldn't bring himself to let out, "I know they're not wrong on any one point. How could I look after a kid, huh? I can't even look after myself. My dad'd wind up doing everything, and I can't do that to him. I just can't. I'm not fighting a corrupt system here – I'm fighting the whole world: Winters and Gladstone and the adoption agency. Even you."

"Me? What did I–"

"You told me I was being stupid. You told me I would be screwing things up even more if I married Emily for the sake of the baby. And you were right. It was a stupid, stupid fantasy. Nothing more. I can fight it all I want, but it won't stop being true. I'd have been running away, I'd have been miserable, and I'd have been a lousy husband and father."

"Hey, I never said–"

Hawkeye glanced at him, lost and defeated. "Look at me, Beej. I'm a wreck. My dad thinks I'm a screw-up, I can't hold it together to make it into work for even two days a week, and I'm an alcoholic. What kind of person is that to try and raise a kid?" He sighed, staring out across the lawn. "They were right – it really is for the best."

BJ tried desperately to comfort him, but Hawkeye pulled away. He'd had enough sympathy, and none of it had done a damned thing to alleviate the guilt that weighed down on him as he walked away from that dreadful place. The distant screams of the unknown woman in the corridor echoed in his skull, and a shadow of the lonely figure limping around the courtyard had forever burned itself in his memory. Stars and honey-blonde hair and sweet, flirtatious laughter had been banished forever from his mind, chased away by those haunting sights and sounds. And Emily – strong, capable, resilient Lt. Winters – resplendent in her army greens, had been replaced by a shuffling, beaten figure in an ill-fitting pinafore, struggling painfully with a mop and bucket.

He trudged with empty determination down the steps, his hands shoved into his pockets. BJ followed a short distance behind, watching as his friend crossed the front lawn with his head down. The steel gate screeched in protest as Hawkeye nudged it open with his foot and walked to the car. Still, he refused to look back. As BJ searched for the keys, he saw Hawkeye rest his hands on the roof of the car, his head bowed, eyes closed. He stood like that for several seconds, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathed: in, out, in, out.

Then his control snapped. BJ winced as Hawkeye raised his fist and reeled back, his knuckles connecting with the steel bodywork with a sickening thud. He didn't make a sound. He punched and kicked and beat down on the cold metal with silent, impotent fury and BJ didn't try and stop him.

At last, Hawkeye's rage subsided, and he collapsed against the side of the vehicle, sinking to the ground. There was blood on the white paintwork. Still, Hawkeye didn't cry. He just sat, staring, unseeing into the middle distance. BJ drew a little closer, not wanting to invade his space, but just lingering just close enough to shield him from view from the tiny windows of Fairhaven's dormitories. He wasn't sure who he was protecting – Hawkeye, or the women on the other side of the wall – but it felt right, somehow.

"You know the really stupid thing?" Hawkeye mumbled at last, barely audible.

"What's that?" BJ asked. He couldn't imagine. A lot of stupid things had happened these past couple of days. He could scarcely make sense of it all.

"When I got that letter," Hawkeye explained, his voice flat, drained of all emotion, "all I could think about at first was that goddamn bus."

His words gave BJ an awful sinking feeling. The question had haunted him since the previous day; the one he'd never dared utter aloud. But there was the answer, in Hawkeye's own words, unprompted.

"It's still… so tough being around kids, you know," Hawkeye confessed, wringing at his hands. "Dad's clinic was hell. Women bringing in their babies – it just brought it all back. Then I got Emily's letter and I thought… this was my turning point. Maybe this would make me face it, you know? Maybe this is the world's way of… I don't know, restoring the balance or something. Cosmic justice, you know? I ended one life but I started another. And suddenly it all seemed to make sense."

"I guess," BJ replied gently. "If it helps to look at it that way, why not?"

"It doesn't, though," Hawkeye continued, "because that's _not_ what happened. The world isn't restoring any balance. It's _punishing me_!"

The pain in his words made BJ physically wince. "Oh, Hawk. Don't do this to yourself."

Hawkeye didn't seem to hear him. He pressed on, his voice wavering with pent up emotion. "Emily's in a psych hospital because of me! And that Korean woman's baby is _dead_ because of me! And because I did that, now I have to go through the rest of my life knowing my own kid is out there somewhere, and I'll never even get a chance…"

He trailed off, looking up as the creak of the gate caught his attention. BJ turned, and the young clerk from the lobby approached them timidly, glancing over her shoulder, as if afraid. She ignored BJ, and, forgoing any explanation, thrust something into Hawkeye's hands. "I'm sorry I can't do more," she announced in little more than a whisper. "I'd lose my job."

And then she was gone, just as quickly as she had come, the gate announcing her departure with its rusty groan.

BJ stepped closer, crouching opposite Hawkeye on the sidewalk. "What is it?"

His friend cradled it in his hands, hiding it, almost as if he wanted to keep _something_ for himself out of this awful experience. Exhausted eyes darted back and forth, reading, his lips moving dumbly as he absorbed the information gifted to him.

Then he turned it over. The gasp that escaped him was like a thunderbolt of unrestrained emotion, splitting the dark fog of numbness that had descended over him since they left Miss Gladstone's office. Tears broke through once more, but not like his silent weeping as he'd sat on the desk. These brought with them a raw, agonising wail that made BJ tremble right down to his core. He held back for a moment, so overwhelmed was he by this naked, unbridled display of pain; this inhuman sound that erupted from his best friend without any attempt to hold back. Almost afraid to touch Hawkeye, in case he might shatter, he laid a hand gently on Hawkeye's arm.

Hawkeye reached out to him in kind without looking at him, a purely reflexive action, his fingers digging into BJ's skin, even though his sleeve, his hand shaking.

It was only now that BJ caught a glimpse of what Hawkeye was holding: It was a piece of card, not much bigger than a passport photograph, and damaged at the top where a paperclip looked like it had been pressed against the edge with a little too much force. On the back, BJ could make out a few words, in neat, blue, hand-inked capitals: ' _WINTERS. BABY BOY. WHITE AMERICAN. b. 12.25.53. AVAILABLE FEBRUARY '54 ONWARDS._ '

BJ was struck at first by the awful realisation that the words sounded like an advertisement for second hand goods in the window of a liquor store – and then, shortly after, by the realisation of what was printed on the other side.

Hawkeye didn't seem to notice him anymore. His hand balled into a fist around BJ's sleeve, but his attention was focussed entirely on the tiny piece of card he held in his hand. With no concern for passers-by, he howled his grief into the evening air, his shoulders shaking violently, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath between wretched, hacking sobs. BJ had seen Hawkeye cry more times than he'd ever care to remember, but never like this. Never with such ferocity. It was the cry of someone with nothing left to lose; the cry of someone who had been promised a new life, only to have it ripped away.

There was nothing BJ could do for him now. There were no more calls to make, no more places to go. They were done. BJ lowered himself to the ground beside Hawkeye, gathering his friend in his arms. His back pressed painfully against the car, but he didn't care. Beside him, Hawkeye clutched the photograph of his son to his chest, and, at last, he began to grieve. It would be some time before BJ was able to pick him up off the concrete and start the long, painful drive back to Mill Valley.


	9. Epilogue

_**New Jersey, January 1983** _

"Is it snowing yet? I was promised snow!" Dashing out from behind the bar, Dionne, the only waitress on duty that evening, ran across to press her face to the glass, her scarlet Perspex earrings rattling against the pane. The scarce few patrons on this cold and dismal evening glanced over as she expressed her disappointment at the weather.

The old man at the bar paid little mind to the outside world. With his back to the window, he glanced for about the fiftieth time towards the door, then to the clock that hung above it.

"It's a quarter past seven," Dionne told him helpfully, returning to her post and polishing glasses.

"Nothing wrong with my eyes," the old man replied with a smile. "They're the one bit of me that still works."

He looked over again, and then glanced at his watch for an extra measure.

It was a slow night – everyone had stayed at home, clustered around their television sets for the Superbowl. The bar didn't have a television, or even a radio, and it was populated this evening only by those trying to escape the crowds. That was specifically why he had chosen it.

He stirred his drink needlessly, swirling the olive around the Martini glass. Hands that had once been capable of stitching human flesh together with meticulous precision were now slow and stiffened with arthritis. The cocktail stick slipped from his fingers. "Goddamn it!"

The years had not been kind to him. Some would say he had not been kind to himself, and he was inclined to agree with them. He never had been able to get a handle on his drinking. The problem had ebbed and flowed over the years, much like the drink itself, but he'd never been able to shake it. He knew that was his father's biggest disappointment, even after he'd finally managed to pull _some_ aspects of his life together. It wasn't right, the elder physician told him, more concerned than angry, for a doctor to treat his body with such blatant disregard. He'd offered up a silent apology for his failure at the funeral, saddened that he had never once told him _why_. Suddenly, he'd understood why his father had never mentioned his mother's illness, or his own; why he had hidden behind fancy breakfasts and blithe letters. He knew now what it was like to be so afraid of wounding someone you care about that you push them away instead. That was, perhaps, his biggest regret, but it was hard to tell – he had a lot of them.

Christmases were the worst. The first year, he had tried. He'd really tried. He'd flown back out to California, where a familiar cheesy grin and matching moustache offered much-needed cheer, but the presence of his best friend's excitable pre-schooler and heavily pregnant wife soon proved to be too much. After a few hours, he bailed and checked into a motel, with little more of an explanation than the sad, mumbled words: "I'm sorry, I can't do this." When BJ's son was born a couple of months later, the role of Godfather had been tentatively proffered in his direction, along with wary "we'll understand if"s and "only if you're comfortable"s. He'd refused.

Nonetheless, BJ remained his closest – possibly _only_ – friend. Despite the distance between them, or maybe even _because_ of it, they stayed in touch. He couldn't handle letting anyone else in. As soon as friends and work colleagues married off and started surrounding themselves with children, he would retreat, and, gradually, as his circle of single friends dwindled, he'd ended up alone.

He'd never married. The idea of settling down held less appeal in his thirties than it did in his twenties, the main difference being that he'd lost interest in women altogether. He'd dated occasionally, but the guilt, fear and sheer, blinding _panic_ that any kind of sexual intimacy brought on was a swift mood-killer. Hoping to cure the problem, he'd had a vasectomy at thirty-six – a decision that broke his father's heart and earned him some curious looks from the surgical staff. ' _Why?_ ' everyone wanted to know. ' _Are you sure you want to make that decision so young?_ ' Not to mention a few vulgar comments from the male staff about the sowing of wild oats and natural masculine inclinations towards seed-spreading. They'd agonised over the consent forms with him and tried to talk him out of it, and he couldn't help but wonder why _he_ deserved generous thinking time and careful decisions, but _she_ did not. Shamefully, he'd got angry, snatched the clipboard from the nurse and scrawled his signature on it, yelling, "Would you just get on with it already?!"

Nonetheless, despite the reassurance of surgical intervention, his… phobia, as he began to call it, persisted. Some years later, he managed to confess to the aging Sidney Freedman the events that had transpired in California, and the psychiatrist pinned things down very well: the fear of biological consequence was merely the tip of the iceberg, and he had, in addition to this, decided he was _bad_ for women, unworthy of their love and affection, and a danger to their well-being in every sense. The problem was treatable, Sidney assured him, but he'd declined. There seemed little point now. What was the use of rediscovering one's sexuality at fifty-six? Besides, he'd decided, he deserved to be lonely. (Sidney had told him that was the neuroses talking too, but he liked his neuroses – they were his oldest friends and they kept him company.)

Fortunately, he'd thrown himself into his work so much he'd never had the chance to chase women like he used to, even if he'd wanted to. He had struggled on at his father's practice for years, never really able to engage with it the way he had done before Korea, but he stumbled on a news article in the medical journals one day that changed his life. The rumours had long circulated among medical men, and society at large, of a 'magic pill' that would do away with mythical herbal cocktails, backstreet abortionists, and women disappearing for months on end due to 'German measles' or a 'sick relative'. The new contraceptive pill was a step forward, but he knew only too well that the tools were useless without the education; without doctors who would not only dispense the pharmaceuticals, but were actually willing to _talk_ to the young people. And boy could he talk!

It turned out there was little competition for the post, and he was offered a job within a week – in New York. His father had been supportive, but bereft. He must have heard the word "why?" more than a hundred times, and wished he had the courage to tell him. In the end the choice was simple – he could stay there and loathe himself for the rest of his life, or he could move away and at least feel like he was making amends for his own failings in the world; making it all _mean_ something.

Leaving Crabapple Cove earned him the scorn of a lot of his old patients. First of all they were sad to see him go, and then that changed to the protestation that he was too good a doctor to lose to the big city. (That was a lie. He'd seen the complaints since he got back from Korea. His dad used to hide them under his in-tray until he could sugar the pill later on.) Then, when it became clear that honeyed words and fake praise weren't going to dissuade him, the real reason came to light: they didn't want him working on one of 'those' projects that encouraged women to engage in 'that sort of behaviour'.

Sitting on the train to Augusta, on his way to fly out, he'd watched the Cove shrink into the distance. All those years in Korea he'd thought of nothing but returning to his hometown, only to find that he'd come back too jaded, too deeply scarred, too _broken_ to ever fit in again. He'd gotten into the habit of kicking back against authority while in the army, and it was a hard habit to break. It seemed once you started seeing injustice in the world, you started seeing it everywhere, and it wasn't in his nature not to fight that. It was true what Thomas Wolfe had said: "You Can't Go Home Again."

The work was difficult at times, and now he was standing on the other side of things, he couldn't help but feel a little guilty about all the times he'd guffawed through Henry's awkward VD seminars, but he held up well. He was funny and understanding, but honest – everything the kids said their parents and teachers were not, when it came to this topic – and he was met with quiet, respectful gratitude, although the authorities often despised him. He took to controversy with surprising ease. It had never occurred to him over all those years that what he really needed was another good battle – but he found one. Where there was sex, it turned out, there was politics, and the drug was met with fierce protestation in many States, as was any move to talk about sex to young couples. But the youngsters adored him, and as far as the politicians were concerned, he relished the opportunity to get back on his soap box – he thought he'd left it in Korea.

The ongoing conflict in Vietnam was another one of his passionate causes, and although none of his friends who had worked alongside him at the 4077th were surprised by his anti-war sentiments, nobody really understood why he became so agitated over the situation as the fighting continued into the seventies. He threw himself into rallies and protests, opposing the war itself and especially opposing the draft. Conscription had become a hot topic at the White House, and when it finally ended, with the last of the draftees being born no later than 1952, he had damned near collapsed in front of the television from sheer relief.

One person in his life wasn't remotely shocked by his political ardency. BJ had phoned him up after one particularly well-publicised debate: "Saw you on my TV last night. Looked like you were having fun."

"Oh, you know me," he'd replied with a laugh, "just indulging in my favourite hobby of shouting at Republicans."

And BJ would laugh back at him and mutter, "Hey, I _voted_ for that guy."

"Oh, Charles would be so proud!"

He had another hobby, too. It was one he never explained to anyone, not even Sidney. Sometimes, when the sky was clear and the growing light pollution from the cities wasn't too bad, he would walk out onto the balcony or into the garden of whatever rented house, apartment or hotel room he was in at the time, and look up. As he gazed up at the stars, he wondered at how the sky rotated nightly across the earth, changing with the seasons, bringing new planets into view, new constellations, depending on the time and the date. Of his many regrets, he regretted never knowing the _real_ names of the little clusters of light he had pointed out in the sky on that evening in Korea. He couldn't remember what they looked like, far too distracted as he was at the time by the light that glinted in his companion's eyes.

And so, looking up at the stars, he named each and every one of them, often sitting there for hours, counting and naming, his eyes darting across the blackness like he was reading some special heavenly code that only he could decipher. He named them all for her, for their child, and released them into the night, in the hope that somewhere in the world, she would be looking up too.

He never heard from her again. He wrote several letters to her at Langley Porter since leaving San Francisco. For over two years he received no reply, until one day, they were returned to him, every single one, with a note in unfamiliar writing declaring that Emily Winters was no longer a resident. Included in their number were the two he had sent in the February and March of '54. They were returned unopened. He'd cried for a day, drank heavily for another three, and then finally, realising it would do no good whatsoever, he'd burned the letters. He would never know if she'd posted them herself, or if her parents, or even her doctors, had taken it upon themselves to bundle up his mail and send it back, but in case it was the former, he stopped trying to contact her after that. He knew that whatever grief he carried within him, for her, it must be ten times worse. He didn't want to be a reminder of that. No matter what comfort it may have offered him, he couldn't take that at her expense. She had already lost too much, and he had no choice but to let her grieve in peace.

He carried his own reminder, though. The photograph gifted to him by the woman at Fairhaven – he never knew her name – lived in his wallet for decades. It had taken him a while to do it. At first he'd tried to shut it all out. He had told himself he had no right to carry around a photograph of someone else's baby. That was how he thought of his own flesh and blood – ' _somebody else's baby_ ' – because that seemed to be how the world viewed him. It wasn't until he moved away that he stopped thinking of him as somebody else's – at least in his own, private thoughts. When he was alone he'd take that picture out and look at it, and let himself think the words he would never have uttered in public: ' _my son_ '.

Then he would tuck the photograph away again, furtively, feeling as if he'd done something wicked, and pour himself a gin and tonic to stop his hands from shaking.

But all the liquor in the world couldn't stop his hands from shaking now. He stared into his Martini, and for the fifth time told himself not to drink it. He'd promised himself he'd be sober for this.

Another glance at the clock. Another two minutes had gone by.

What a pathetic sight he must make, he thought: a grey, lonely, ghost of a man, old beyond his years, slouched over a Martini, suit jacket slung over an old sweater, hands shaking, staring at the clock like he'd been stood up.

Pushing the glass to one side, he turned his attentions once more to the collection of documents that sat on the bar in front of him. He must have read each one a dozen times already, from the formal, crisp, printed documents, boldly emblazoned with the symbol of the C.U.B. – Concerned United Birthparents – to the most recent additions to the file: the handwritten, shakily scrawled epistles that had landed on his doormat only a couple of weeks ago. Words that had made his entire world come skidding to a halt.

He'd dropped everything. He'd cancelled lectures and changed flights and apologised profusely to one particularly irate University professor who didn't have the faintest idea what could be so damned important that he couldn't make his lecture.

He hadn't told him, partly because it wasn't his business, and partly because even as he sat here, he couldn't quite believe it was happening. To speak of it out loud might make it shatter. The information – what little he had of it – matched up, but the words on the paper still felt like a dream. He kept expecting to wake up.

The clock had moved on by another minute, and a deep sense of dread started to settle in the pit of his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe it away. Sidney had taught him the technique to deal with panic attacks, and he used it now to deal with… whatever it was he was feeling at this moment.

When he opened his eyes again, the door was swaying. And then he was too, because he'd taken one look at the young man who had just walked in, and it was like looking into a mirror.

Or at least, it would have been, thirty-five years ago: jet black hair instead of grey, and distinctly fewer wrinkles. But instead of blue, his eyes were a rich, dark brown. ' _Just like his mother's_ '.

He didn't know what to do with himself. Should he wave? Smile? Cross the room and introduce himself? Instead he just stared, overcome with the enormity of the moment.

Then he looked at him. He was staring right back. The young, startlingly familiar man – the one who was like his younger self come back to haunt him – actually _looked_ , and he knew every emotion that was surging through his aging body was showing on his face, because he saw the recognition register in the younger man's eyes. And then he was walking towards him. He climbed down from his bar stool with a swiftness he didn't even know his legs were capable of anymore.

The young man approached him – he too had a letter from the C.U.B. clutched tightly in shaking fingers. He wetted his lips nervously and swallowed. "Benjamin Pierce?" he asked, his voice unsteady.

And Hawkeye's heart felt like it would burst out of his chest. "Yeah," he managed to respond. He didn't know what to do with himself, so he settled for holding out one trembling hand in greeting.

His son stared at him for a moment, and took the proffered hand, shaking it formally. Then, releasing it again, he threw his arms around him and hugged him. He hugged him so tight he could hardly _breathe,_ but still he held on. He held on like his life depended on it, and he sobbed into that jet-black hair and he never wanted to let go. Twenty-nine wasted years were wrung out of him as he hugged his son to him. The skinny body in his arms shook, and he realised his boy was crying, too.

"It's okay," Hawkeye breathed. "It's okay."

"I can't believe you're here!"

The tearful words in his ear awoke something deeply paternal in him, and Hawkeye clutched his son to his chest, just as he had clutched that tiny photograph he'd been given all those years ago. "I'm here," he said gently. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

They must have stood like that for several minutes, gaining them some very curious looks from other customers, but neither one cared. Hawkeye felt as if a little piece of himself that had been missing for three decades had finally been slotted back into place. He was whole again. As he cradled his son in his arms, dried his tears, kissed his forehead and clutched at his hands – long fingers, surgeon's hands, just like his dad's – Hawkeye offered up a silent prayer to the night sky. ' _I found our boy, Emily. I found him_.'

And, outside, as tiny flakes of shining white began to fall on the frozen streets, the stars returned to earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘The girls who went away were told by family members, social services, agencies and clergy that relinquishing their child for adoption was the only acceptable option. It would preserve their reputation and save both mother and child from a lifetime of shame. Often it was clear to everyone, except the expectant mother, that adoption was the answer. Many of these girls, even those in their twenties, had no other option than to go along with their families to avoid being permanently ostracized. For them there was generally little or no discussion before their parents sent them away. Those who went to maternity homes to wait out their pregnancies received little or no counselling and were totally unprepared for childbirth or relinquishment. They were simply told they must surrender their child, keep the secret, move on, and forget. Though moving on and forgetting proved impossible, many women were shamed into keeping their secret.’
> 
> \- Ann Fessler, ‘The Girls Who Went Away’


	10. Author's Afterword

Several years ago, I stumbled across Ann Fessler’s book, ‘The Girls Who Went Away’, a commentary on the treatment of single mothers in the United States during the mid-to-late twentieth century, featuring a wide selection of interview transcriptions. It wasn’t something I was required to read for school or university, but I found it on the floor of my girlfriend’s apartment, and sat and read it from cover to cover in a single sitting. It was the single most traumatic thing I ever read. The stories in its pages gave me nightmares. I am not hugely maternal and have no desire to have children, but I spent a couple of days afterwards having dreams about the experiences of these women. It was possibly one of the most disturbing educational experiences of my life.

Due to the stigma and shame heaped upon single mothers at the time, these women were pressured to remain silent for years, their stories only recently surfacing. Nonetheless, the topic of unwed mothers, the ‘homes’ they were sent to, and the subsequent adoption of their babies against their will has been discussed in other, contemporary works. The BBC television series ‘Call the Midwife’ covered the British side of the practice in two episodes, one based heavily on real life events reported by Jennifer Worth in her original books, and one purely fictional. While conveying the emotional trauma suffered by birthparents upon separation from their child, what was lacking from these stories was the portrayal of the scale of damaging practices across the system. In the latter in particular, the matron in charge of the home as a gin-swilling, abusive crook, who is easily blackmailed out of her position of authority, enabling the girls to take over and decide their own fate.

Not only does this rebellion seem like an idealised, unrealistic reaction to the situation, one designed to inspire a 'feel-good' reaction from the audience rather than do justice to the issue in hand, but it also dismissed how deeply intertwined this practice was with the values and policies at the time. This was not the work of one or two corrupt individuals failing to meet the needs of the women in their care: it was a nationwide blanket policy that pushed the decision onto women, especially those of the white middle classes (single motherhood was regarded as a practice reserved for the working classes and ethnic minorities), in the belief that it was the best thing for them, and above all that it was the best thing for the child. In some cases the women were vilified, or even abused in some way, but this was often dismissed as a suitable deterrent against what society saw as undesirable sexual behaviour. The other aspect was a more subtle approach: the kindly yet persuasive authority figures who knew just how to pressure and cajole, believing it really was the best thing to do, and that the woman would go on to have more children in a happy, acceptable family environment, the child would go to a paying, respectable, family with wealthy _married_ parents, and the whole business would be forgotten.

With regards to 'M*A*S*H', many fanfiction writers enjoy engaging in the complex historical and sociological issues of the 1950s, and so I decided to do just that. The show itself deals with a great deal of morality and politics in a wartime setting, and so I decided to tell a post-war story set in the civilian world, dealing with this subject, as it has moved me so much.

By telling the story from the points of view of male characters, I had the benefit of framing the narrative in such a way that both we and the characters learn about the practice and polices from an outside perspective, only discovering this secretive world through grace of a personal connection – the mother of Hawkeye’s child. As Hawkeye seeks out the truth, we learn as well, through his eyes, the trauma that birthmothers faced. The attitudes and obstacles he encounters along the way are based largely on those described in the first-person accounts in Fessler’s book – anger, rejection and disappointment from family members; confusion at the legal processes; helplessness in the face of bureaucracy; and finally the gentle yet persuasive grinding down of resistance by a system that really did feel it was doing this for the best.

Historically, the fathers wound up shouldering far less of the blame than the mothers, as pre-marital sex was regarded as normal for men but a sign of gross moral deviancy for women. Hawkeye’s attempts to draw some of the blame onto himself by confessing his sexual past is a commentary on this, but the truth is that at the time nobody would have really cared. Hawkeye, however, feels personally responsible for Emily’s fate, and begins to steep guilt upon himself for the consequences of his own personal choices, because realistically nobody else is going to acknowledge the part he played. She takes the punishment while he is largely ignored.

Emily’s institutionalisation, incidentally, is an extreme example, but not unheard of. Nearly all the women Fessler interviewed reported an ongoing sense of grief and shame, along with various mental and physical health problems. One girl was indeed held in a psychiatric hospital for over a year until she agreed to sign the adoption papers. Emily’s detainment used here as a device to demonstrate far more swiftly the potentially devastating effects this practice had on the lives of birthmothers, as well as the way control was wrestled from them. It effectively silences her (as countless women were silenced throughout and after the process of the adoption until society began to permit them to speak out) and leaves the central characters to piece together her story via her letter and other snippets of information gleaned through their own detective work.

Finally, Emily’s breakdown also mirrors Hawkeye’s own mental breakdown shortly before leaving Korea. I have tried to tie in the long term effects of war with this story, bringing particular emphasis to Hawkeye’s struggle to rehabilitate into society after his time in Korea, and how this significant change has affected both characters. While BJ is desperately striving to pick up the pieces of his domestic life and go back to the man he was before, Hawkeye is still clinging to Korea; still doing anything he can to change the world and damn the consequences. They may have sent him home, they may have declared peace, but Hawkeye will always be a fighter at heart, and he will always have his own personal battles to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Korean Police Action ended on July 27th 1953. The letter Hawkeye receives from Emily would have been posted to Korea shortly before this time, its delivery disrupted by his relocation to the psychiatric hospital during 'Goodbye, Farewell and Amen'. The events depicted here are taking place in late April 1954  
> The home Emily stayed at is based on the Fairhaven Home in Sacramento, which ceased operation in the fifties and became a retirement home for missionaries, and was then renovated into apartments. The building still stands, and is mentioned in Louise Wagenknecht’s book ‘White Poplar, Black Locust’.  
> The Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute is a psychiatric teaching hospital, part of the Psychiatry Department at the University of California, San Francisco. Langley Porter was the first psychiatric institute in California, and opened in 1942.  
> In the interests of historical accuracy, every effort was made to keep this fictional story faithful to the genuine descriptions and case studies given in Ann Fessler’s book, ‘The Girls Who Went Away’.  
> From approximately 1940 to 1970, it is estimated that up to 4 million mothers in the United States had children placed for adoption, with 2 million during the 1960s alone.  
> Hawkeye’s reunion with his son takes place on January 30th 1983, the night of Superbowl XVII.  
> Images of Fairhaven and Langley Porter can be found here: http://1drv.ms/1GyOIJQ


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